After occupying Raqqa, barbaric ISIS gangs murdered large numbers of people and put their bodies in mass graves they created in the city. Using the civilians in the city as human shields during the SDF’s operations to liberate the city, the gangs savagely murdered hundreds of civilians who wanted to head to freed areas under SDF control, and buried them in mass graves.

A special unit under the Raqqa Reconstruction Committee that was founded after the liberation of the city from ISIS, has put much effort into establishing mass graves in the city and exhuming dead bodies. As part of these efforts, at least 750 bodies have been exhumed from mass graves so far.

Yasir El-Xemîs from the unit working on mass graves stated that their unit in four groups has started to exhume the bodies in mass graves. “We deliver the identified bodies to families, while we bury those unidentified in the cemetery in the village of Tal al-Baya. We have difficulties in identification process due to a lack of technical means.”

Yasir El-Xemîs said ISIS gangs were using the Al-Rashid Stadium in Raqqa city centre as a mass grave, noting that they have exhumed 500 bodies from this area alone.