Human Rights Watch: ISIS used a “hot well” in northern Syria to dispose of the bodies of its victims

Human Rights Watch said an organization called the Islamic State used a crater in northeast Syria to bury the bodies of people who were kidnapped and detained while they controlled the area.

Investigators began an investigation after receiving a video clip, in 2014, that shows ISIS fighters throwing the bodies into a 50-meter-deep hole in Wadi al-Houta, in the Syrian Raqqa camp.

The international human rights organization believes that the burial of the bodies continued at this site during the period after the organization’s rule.

Human Rights Watch asked local authorities in Syria to secure the site, remove the remains and preserve the evidence for investigative authorities.

More than 20 mass graves containing thousands of bodies were found in areas subject to ISIS in Syria.

Victims buried in these mass graves include activists, human rights workers, journalists and residents who were trying to flee from jihadist-controlled areas.

The Islamic State took control of an area of ​​Syrian land, estimated at some 88,000 square kilometers, that stretched from western Syria to eastern Iraq, and imposed its brutal government rules on approximately 8 million people who are residents of those areas.

One of the most important tourist attractions and full of scenic nature is Wadi Al-Houta, which is located 85 kilometers north of Raqqa. But the site became a “hotbed of terror and punishment” between 2013 and 2015, during which ISIS fighters took control of the site, according to researcher Sarah al-Kayali of Human Rights Watch.

“Revealing what happened in the Hutta and other mass graves in Syria is essential to discover what happened to the thousands who were executed by the Islamic State and to hold their killers accountable,” said Al-Kayali.

A Human Rights Watch report said Monday that some local residents in the area stated that they had received threats from ISIS fighters to throw them at the access point. Some said they saw scattered bodies on the edge of the valley.

A video clip posted by ISIS on social media in 2014 showed a group of ISIS fighters throwing the bodies of two people into the al-Houta well after they were killed.

Researchers from the International Human Rights Organization sent a plane to explore the Wadi al-Houta crater, which resulted in the discovery of 6 bodies floating on the surface of the water at the bottom of the abyss. However, the results of the analysis of the remains confirmed that they were killed long after ISIS left the area.

Geographic maps and topographic models suggest that the depth of the valley is much greater than that of flying planes, and that there may be two bodies below the surface of the water, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

The international organization said the party that controls the valley is responsible for treating the site as a crime scene, finding the missing and investigating their deaths.

The area bordering Wadi al-Houta is controlled by Syrian-backed Syrian opposition factions, fighting under the banner of the Syrian National Army.

And those forces took control of the area last year after a battle with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led coalition that had successfully liberated northeast Syria from Islamic State.