SOHR: Kurdish officials remove dozens of bodies from mass grave in Syria

Kurdish-affiliated officials said on Thursday they had found the remains of about 30 bodies in a mass grave in northern Syria, after a war watchdog said they were killed by extremists.

At least 29 bodies, including a woman and two children, have been found in a mass grave near a hotel in Manbij.

The hotel was turned into a prison when ISIS ruled the northern city between 2014 and 2016.

According to the Manbij Military Council, municipal personnel working on the sewerage system discovered the mass grave on Wednesday.

Some decomposed remains were found handcuffed and blindfolded, it said.

The military council said it was not clear when they were killed, but it was during the rule of ISIS’s Manbij.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights War Monitor said the remains are believed to be of people abducted by ISIS fighters.

US-backed Kurdish-led forces took control of Manbij in 2016 after driving extremists out of the city.

Dozens of mass graves have been found in Iraq and Syria, but the process of identification is slow, expensive and complicated.

ISIS captured large parts of Iraq and Syrian territory in 2014 and killed thousands before being taken into custody.

One of the largest alleged ISIS mass graves contained 200 bodies and was discovered in Syria in 2019 near Raqa, the group’s former apparent capital.

Rights groups have repeatedly called on Kurdish officials and the Syrian government to investigate the fate of thousands of people who went missing during the ISIS regime.

British journalist John Cantley and Italian Jesuit priest Paolo D’Oglio are among the missing.

Syria’s war that began in 2011 has killed nearly half a million people and forced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.