DAMASCUS (Kayhan Intl.) – Daesh used a deep gorge in northeastern Syria as a dumping ground and mass grave for bodies of people it abducted and executed, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said in a report.
Authorities need to remove the human remains from the al-Hota gorge located 85km (53 miles) north of Raqqa city and preserve the evidence for criminal proceedings against the killers, HRW urged in a statement.
Daesh controlled the area around the al-Hota gorge from 2013 to 2015.
By flying a camera-equipped drone into the 50m (164 feet) deep gorge, HRW discovered the remains of at least six people floating at the bottom.
Based on the state of decomposition, the bodies were dumped there long after Daesh had left the area, HRW said. The identities of those victims and their causes of death remain unknown.
Geological maps and a 3D topographic model of al-Hota from the drone imagery suggest that the gorge goes deeper than the drone was able to see, so more human remains may lie below the water’s surface, HRW said.
"Al-Hota gorge, once a beautiful natural site, has become a place of horror and reckoning,” Sara Kayyali, Syria researcher at HRW said.
"Exposing what happened there, and at the other mass graves in Syria, is crucial to determining what happened to the thousands of the people ISIS (Daesh) executed and holding their killers to account.”
Locals also recounted to HRW that when Daesh controlled the Raqqa area, its members threatened people with being thrown into al-Hota.
Three people told HRW they had been to al-Hota during the time of Daesh’s control and had seen bodies scattered along the gorge’s edge.
One man who had gone to collect desert truffles that grow in the area in March 2015 said he saw a body stuck on a protruding ledge.
"This was a dumping area for bodies from all over,” he told HRW. "They [Daesh] brought them in from Raqqa, Dayr al-Zawr - nobody knows how many bodies were there.”
A Daesh-recorded video posted on Facebook in 2014 shows a group of men throwing two bodies into the gorge.
HRW verified that the clothes on the men match those worn by two people who are shown in another video being executed by Daesh members.
More than 20 mass graves across Syria containing thousands of bodies have been found in areas formerly held by Daesh.
Daesh controlled the area around the al-Hota gorge from 2013 to 2015.
By flying a camera-equipped drone into the 50m (164 feet) deep gorge, HRW discovered the remains of at least six people floating at the bottom.
Based on the state of decomposition, the bodies were dumped there long after Daesh had left the area, HRW said. The identities of those victims and their causes of death remain unknown.
Geological maps and a 3D topographic model of al-Hota from the drone imagery suggest that the gorge goes deeper than the drone was able to see, so more human remains may lie below the water’s surface, HRW said.
"Al-Hota gorge, once a beautiful natural site, has become a place of horror and reckoning,” Sara Kayyali, Syria researcher at HRW said.
"Exposing what happened there, and at the other mass graves in Syria, is crucial to determining what happened to the thousands of the people ISIS (Daesh) executed and holding their killers to account.”
Locals also recounted to HRW that when Daesh controlled the Raqqa area, its members threatened people with being thrown into al-Hota.
Three people told HRW they had been to al-Hota during the time of Daesh’s control and had seen bodies scattered along the gorge’s edge.
One man who had gone to collect desert truffles that grow in the area in March 2015 said he saw a body stuck on a protruding ledge.
"This was a dumping area for bodies from all over,” he told HRW. "They [Daesh] brought them in from Raqqa, Dayr al-Zawr - nobody knows how many bodies were there.”
A Daesh-recorded video posted on Facebook in 2014 shows a group of men throwing two bodies into the gorge.
HRW verified that the clothes on the men match those worn by two people who are shown in another video being executed by Daesh members.
More than 20 mass graves across Syria containing thousands of bodies have been found in areas formerly held by Daesh.
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