Thousands seized by Islamic State in Iraq, Syria remain missing

The rights group says that between 2013 and 2017, when IS ruled much of northern and eastern Syria, the militant group detained thousands who remain missing and whose families continue to live in a state of grief and uncertainty.

Three years after its territorial defeat, thousands are still missing and accountability for their captors remains elusive. Families of the missing feel abandoned by a world that has largely moved on, while they struggle alone to uncover the fate of their loved ones.

In its report titled “Unearthing Hope: The Search for the Missing Victims of ISIS,” SJAC said that approximately 6,000 bodies have been exhumed from dozens of mass graves dug by IS in northeast Syria, and retrieved from buildings destroyed by airstrikes of the US-led coalition during the military campaign that eventually brought down IS.