Mass grave with 900 bodies found in Iraq

[News_Editor]

Mass grave with 900 bodies found in Iraq

2011-07-08 06:11:37 GMT+7 (ICT)

BAGHDAD (BNO NEWS) -- Iraqi authorities discovered a mass grave with some 900 bodies near Iraq's southern central city of Diwaniyah, the Iraqi official newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the report as cited by Xinhua news agency, the corpses are believed to be Kurds killed during Saddam Hussein's rule in the 1980s. They were found in al-Shanafiyah area, some 50 km (31 miles) southwest of Diwaniyah, the capital city of al-Qadsiyah province.

"Judicial teams from the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry arrived at the site where the bodies buried in trenches at the local cemetery of al-Amharri in al-Shanafiyah," Dakhil Saihoud, a member of the provincial council and head of the council's justice and accountability commission told the state-owned al-Sabah newspaper.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that the remains are those of Kurds who have been killed during Saddam regime in 1980s."

The official said an investigation has been launched to determine the identities of those killed.

In mid-April, the bodies of at least 812 people who were killed under the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein were found in a mass grave in western Iraq. The victims, which included women and children who had been shot in the head, are believed to have been killed between 1980 and 1989.

Human Rights Watch estimated that as many as 290,000 Iraqis have been 'disappeared' by the Iraqi government over the past two decades.

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