ISIS victims in Al-Raqqah | After four years of searching, 24 mass graves found

Al-Raqqah province: The Islamic State has left a destructive legacy constituted in mass graves for people who were detained, arrested or opponents to the group during its control of Al-Raqqah city. Some 28 mass graves for people who were buried in different periods were found in the city.

Often, special experts find mass graves in Al-Raqqah and its countryside. A large number of the bodies are for people who have been executed by ISIS members either in public in the city squares, including regime soldiers or members of its proxies, or inside the group’s prisons, including members of the Free Army since ISIS captured Al-Raqqah in early 2014.

ISIS also has executed many people individually, most of whom have rejected the group’s oppressive policies and also murdered foreign prisoners and hostages who worked as journalists or employees in the humanitarian field.

Another part of the mass graves includes the inhabitants of Al-Raqqah who have been killed in military operations launched by the International Coalition to uproot ISIS. The ordinary people during the anti-ISIS attacks could not take their dead beloved to the ordinary graves and were forced to either bury them in the house yards or parks or empty squares according to the Initial Response Team.

From early 2018 until today, some 28 graves were found, including twenty ones inside Al-Raqqah districts and eight graves in the city countryside.

According to SOHR sources, more than 6,000 persons, most of whom are civilians who were killed in the International Coalition air raids on the city and its countryside in 2017 when fighting escalated between ISIS and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), were removed from the graves.

The sources have documented the murder of 140 families comprising 600 persons in the period from July 2017 and October in the same year in airstrikes on the city.

Reliable sources of the Initial Response Team in Al-Raqqah have informed SOHR that only the identity of 700 bodies that have been found in the mass graves have been identified because there have been no personal identifications for most of the dead people.

The team also managed to identify a civilian when his family recognized his golden teeth. His body was found in a small grave on January 29 in 2021. The team added that he was kidnapped by ISIS in December 2015 from Al-Tabaqqah city in the west Al-Raqqah countryside.

The sources also documented the kidnapping of 500 civilians and members of the Syrian opposition in 2014 when ISIS captured Al-Raqqah city in northeast Syria, and their destiny is still unknown.

The Initial Response Team, working in the areas under the control of the SDF found on August 27, 2020 a mass grave, including more than 20 unknown persons near the equestrian building in west Al-Raqqah. This is the 27th grave that has been found in the province.

The team has found bodies of beaded three females with signs of torture on the bodies in grave number 27.

Finding mass graves is not limited to Al-Raqqah only, but many graves have been found in ISIS-held areas especially in east Syria; the group stronghold in the country. The group used to kidnap and torture the victims before murdering and burying them in mass graves.