(31 Aug 2020) LEAD IN:
A new mass grave discovered in Syria's Raqqa is believed to contain the bodies of victims of the Islamic State group.
The majority of the victims are women, most of whom were killed in field executions by stoning, gunfire, or beheading.
STORY-LINE:
Bodies were exhumed from a new mass grave that was discovered in Syria's Raqqa, the former capital of the Islamic State group's self-declared "caliphate."
The site is believed to contain the bodies of roughly 20 people, mostly women.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a team started to exhume the bodies from cemetery No. 27 in al-Furussia area, after discovering it several days ago with the help of locals.
According to the human rights group, the bodies belong to women, aged between 20 and 30, who were killed during the presence of the Islamic State.
The were mostly killed in "field executions" by stoning, gunfire, or beheading, according to a medic in the team working on exhumations.
Over a dozen mass graves were found in Raqqa since IS militants were driven out in the summer of 2017.
Even as Raqqa's people gradually rebuild, the graves found in houses, parks, destroyed buildings are a grim reminder of the horrors perpetrated by the militants and the massive violence inflicted on the city to remove them.
During their rule, the extremists carried out mass killings, public beheadings and other atrocities.
Women and men accused of adultery were stoned to death, while men believed to be gay were thrown from the tops of buildings and then pelted with stones.
More death came in the years-long aerial and ground campaign to liberate Raqqa, waged by Kurdish-led forces backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition.
The assault destroyed nearly 80% of Raqqa.
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