Mass grave with 40 bodies discovered in Palmyra - 23 of them were women and children

Syrian forces have retaken Palmyra, located 155 miles east of Damascus, from the ISIS who had occupied it over 10 months earlier and Syrian engineering teams and popular defense groups have discovered a mass grave of 40 people in a neighborhood in the newly recaptured ancient city of Palmyra.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 3 April 2016.

The mass grave contains remains of about 40 people, 23 of them women and children - some of the bodies were beheaded and bore signs of torture. SANA news agency have indicated that they were killed by Islamic State militants. After tasking over the town, Syrian army experts have detonated hundreds of mines that were planted by the Islamic State before they were forced out of Palmyra.
Palmyra is a UNESCO Heritage site and an archaeological gem that had attracted tens of thousands of tourists every year before the Islamic State captured the city and destroyed most of its Christian artifacts. Some parts of the site, including the Roman-era grand colonnades and amphitheater appear to have been spared but the damage every else was very much visible.
Syrian officers have dismantled more than 3,000 mines so far and have also reported that there are booby traps everywhere - trees, doors, and even animals. Russian sappers have arrived in Syria to help the Syrian army clear mines in and around the town.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Dozens of corpses found in bamboo cages in Thai human trafficking camp

#massgrave #thailand #bangladesh #immigrants #rohingya It was a mass grave in southern Thailand from which 26 dead bodies have been recovered – the site is near to a human trafficking camp deep inside the jungle as reported in dailymial.co.uk dated 2 May 2015.

From initial findings, it is believed that these decaying corpses are of illegal migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh. They had been brought in to the country via vast trafficking networks which are 'out of control'. It seems the numbers could be over 30 people and they are apparently buried in shallow graves at the chilling site in Songkhla province, just 300 meters from Malaysia.
How they died is still a mystery but as per the Thai police chief, the victims met a 'violent death'. The Sadao district is where they were kept prisoners and this is a known stop-off for traffickers. The reason is simple – they can remain under cover in the remote woodland before taking their captives across the border and beyond.
The traffickers would keep their victims captives in cages until they received the money for their transport across the border – if the money was not received, the victims would be left to die in the cages. These were illegal immigrants, mostly Rohingya Muslims, and they undertook the dangerous journey by sea to escape religious persecution at home and find jobs in Malaysia and Thailand.

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