A UN team investigating the massacre of Iraq's Yazidis and other atrocities has excavated 12 mass graves and is collecting witness accounts that could be used in Iraqi and other national courts, AFP reported Monday (May 20th).
The UN Security Council agreed in 2017 to establish the international probe to ensure the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) faces justice for war crimes in Iraq and Syria.
In a report sent to the council, team leader Karim Asad Ahmad Khan said efforts were focused on three initial investigations: the 2014 massacre of Yazidis, crimes committed in Mosul from 2014 to 2016, and the mass killing of Iraqi military recruits in the Tikrit area in June 2014.
The team began its work with a mass grave containing the remains of ISIS victims in the Sinjar village of Kojo in northwest Iraq.
Ahmad Khan said "progress had been slower than hoped" in the investigation and stressed the need to establish "clear and effective channels" to use the evidence in Iraqi proceedings.
