Mass graves containing over 1,600 people killed by ISIS discovered in town of Sinjar

A total of 31 mass graves containing the bodies of more than 1,600 people massacred by the Islamic State has been found in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar since 2015.

Mahma Khalil, the mayor of Sinjar, said that special teams that search for mass graves have so far uncovered the bodies of 1,646 people. His announcement comes as the Kurdish authorities said that a new mass grave has been discovered in Sinjar's Hardan area.

The mayor stated that investigators are expecting to find 20 more mass graves at the minimum, The New Arab reported. The mass graves that have been discovered to this date are located within the administrative areas of Sinjar, Khalil said.

Kurdish Peshmarga forces recaptured Sinjar in 2015, a year after ISIS fighters overran the town.

The Associated Press reported in August 2016 that between 5,200 and 15,000 people are buried in 72 mass graves in the territory formerly controlled by ISIS.

Official government reports have indicated that ISIS abducted almost 6,000 Yazidi men, women, and children in the first days of the attack on Sinjar in August 2014.

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), an international organization dedicated to the issue of missing people around the world, is coordinating with Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to help in the search operations, according to Rudaw.

The organization said that since 2012, it had gained a mandate from local authorities to protect the mass graves in Sinjar and to preserve the evidence in line with international standards that could be used against the perpetrators in court proceedings.

ISIS continues to execute civilians even as Iraqi-led coalition forces advance toward its remaining territories to push the terror group out of western Mosul.

The Kurdish Regional Security Council (KRSC) announced on Friday that ISIS has killed at least 140 civilians on April 3–4 for trying to flee from the territories held by the group in western Mosul.

"Some bodies were later hung on electrical poles in Eslah Zirai and Tanak neighbourhoods, others were taken to nearby frontlines," a tweet from the KRSC read.

On Sunday, KRSC announced that ISIS executed 12 other civilians for trying to flee from its territories in the Kirkuk region.

In late March, the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights reported that as many as 122 civilians fleeing from Western Mosul were killed by the terror group.

The human rights organization claimed that ISIS executed 22 other families fleeing from Mosul on April 1.

"On Friday, 1 April 2017, ISIS executed 22 families from Al Makkawi area after 22 young men tried to escape the ISIS-controlled area with the help of a Syrian smuggler," the press release from the organization quotes a source as saying.