Ezidi 24 correspondent in Ninewa reveals the existence of a mass grave for Christians in Hamdaniya district

Ezidi 24 – Exclusive

Ezidi 24’s correspondent Jamil Aljamil, an activist and poet, unveiled the existence of a mass grave he was able to photograph on March 25, 2017, in Baghdida, the center of the Hamdaniya district in the AlQiyama cemetery place.

ISIS used the cemetery to bury the bodies of the abducted and remaining Christians who could not escape during ISIS control of the Hamdaniya district. The mass grave, which contained seven bodies, is located on the east side of the AlQiyama cemetery in Baghdida.

The bodies were included Christian’s women and men. Some of the bodies were showing the signs of gunfire. The bodies were not taken to the forensic medicine or to the formal authorities that are dealing with the genocide. Jamil AlJamil only revealed this on his page, and some of the bodies were identified by their families through the recognition of clothes or necklaces that they were wearing.
The Ezidi 24 correspondent says that “the pictures he took, were kept for all of this period after he appealed to his social media page on the same day, calling on all Christian organizations and parties responsible for Christians and Christian parties, but did not receive any care to this matter”.
Our correspondent explained that these pictures are exclusive and the media did not talk about them. That is why we publish them to highlight what happened to Christians as well, where they were subjected to assault, kidnapping, murder and enforced disappearance. It is estimated that the number of Christians who remained under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS) were more than one hundred and twenty men and women and young men and women with the girl Christina. After the liberation of Ninewa province, a few of them returned, the other one died or missing and had no information about them.
Our correspondent added that the behavior of the Christian Militia (Mobilization Units) at the time by opening the cemetery and turned it into graves, was without enough knowledge on how to deal with these sensitive topics (mass killing), and thus there was no enough exposure to media on this issue.
Our correspondent stressed that the international community should reconsider what happened to Christians from crimes amounting to genocide, and not to be dealing with Christian organizations, parties and some clergy alone, this because the later do not have accurate information about the Ninewa plains or Hamdaniya district. They should open an investigation file on these bodies buried without being inspected properly at the hand of specialists of the genocide and mass murders
AlJamil added at end of his speech “We waited for all Christian parties, organizations and clergy who says that they representing Christians and human rights organizations to speak about this cemetery and about the abductees who have not returned until this moment, but unfortunately none of them cared for the tragedies happened to Christians. All of them were dealing only with matters based on their personal interests and benefits”. Today, Ezidi 24 correspondent decided to shed light on these photos and talk about the bodies found in one grave thrown together and showing signs of torture and gunfire.

It is worth mentioning that the people of the city of Baghdida fled on the night of the 6th August, 2014 during the invasion of the Islamic State (ISIS) on the city. A number of people who could not escape were subjected to live under the control of the terrorist group (ISIS). Later, ISIS released a group of elderly prisoners but the rest went missing and no information about them. The number of prisoners was estimated at more than 250 Christian’s men and women but only around 120 of them were released while the rest remained in the province of Ninewa under the control of ISIS. Those later ones are missing to this day. Our correspondent worked on forms documenting statements came from the relatives of the abducted, missing, and killed ones. He has approximately 105 forms showing the information of the abducted, missing and killed ones by ISIS.