Mass grave of hundreds found in Mosul prison
Iraqi paramilitary forces announced Saturday that they had discovered a mass grave at Badush prison near Mosul containing the remains of hundreds of people executed by the Islamic State group.
IS reportedly killed up to 600 people after seizing the jail in 2014, and was also said to have held hundreds of kidnapped women from Iraq's Yazidi minority at the facility.
The Iraqi military said that forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi -- an umbrella group of pro-government forces that are dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias -- were among the units that recaptured the prison from the jihadists.
Hashed forces found "a large mass grave containing the remains of around 500 civilian prisoners in (Badush) prison who were executed by (IS) gangs after they controlled the prison during their occupation of Mosul," they said.
According to HRW, IS gunmen executed up to 600 inmates from Badush prison on June 10, 2014, forcing them to kneel along a nearby ravine and then shooting them with assault rifles.
Meanwhile, Iraq's UN envoy said Friday there was no evidence that the Islamic State group had used chemical weapons in the battle for Mosul.
Ambassador Mohamed Alhakim said he conveyed the information to the United Nations after speaking with his government in Baghdad on Friday.
"There is really no evidence that Daesh has used this chemical weapon," Alhakim told reporters ahead of a Security Council meeting on Iraq. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (IS).
The Red Cross had reported that seven people, five of them children, had been hospitalized near Mosul in early March suffering from exposure to a chemical agent.
The US Defense Department said that IS militants were developing rudimentary chemical weapons such as mustard gas at the University of Mosul.
Iraqi forces launched an operation to retake west Mosul, the largest population center still held by the jihadists, on February 19.
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