Pajhwok Afghan News, April 8, 2007

Mass grave with 50 bodies found in Badakhshan

Similar mass graves, containing 50,000 bodies, were found in the central capital Kabul a few years back.

Jafar Tayar

FAIZABAD: A mass grave with over 50 bodies was unearthed in the northern province of Badakhshan, officials said on Saturday.

Many mass graves by the Russian puppet regimes, the Jehadis or the Taliban have been so far discovered in Afghanistan. (RAWA photo)

The grave was found in Dasht-i-Qargh area of Faizabad, capital of the province, three days back while some people were digging the earth for construction of houses there.

Head of the information and culture department Mohammad Din Khwahani told Pajhwok Afghan News the pieces of clothes, boots and other items recovered along the human skeletons, resembled the traditional dresses used by the male and females in the province.

Those people might have been killed during the communist regime of Hafizullah Amin when Mansoor Hashmi was the governor of that province, said the official.

He said the Dasht-i-Qargh area was a grazing ground during Hafizullah Amin era. It was distributed into plots recently to start a residential scheme there, he informed.

He said a large number of people, majority of them local clerics, who went missing during Hafizullah Amin regime, were either thrown into the Kokcha river or buried in mass graves in that area, he said.

Several human skulls were found tied together indicating that the people were tied before throwing them before firing squads.

Officials and residents in Faizabad have demanded of the government to construct a mosque and name the area as graveyard of 'anonymous martyrs'.

Similar mass graves, containing 50,000 bodies, were found in the central capital Kabul a few years back. Those people are believed to have killed during the communist era regimes in the country in the seventies.

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