Mass Graves Unearthed in Bamiyan

Local officials in Bamiyan province have revealed the discovery of two mass graves in the province.

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Yar Muhammad Nazari, the Bamiyan police chief told foreign news agency that these mass graves have been discovered in the recent days in the Yakawlang District of the province. Mr. Nazari disclosed that the first grave is located beside the city’s airport while the second one has been located in the “Qarakhwal” locality of Yakawlang District.

As per Mr. Nazari it hasn’t yet been specified as to when and how many people had been buried in these graves but he added that these graves do belong to the civil war period. The Police Chief said that a team of investigators had recently traveled from Kabul to Bamiyan and the members of the team in their first opinion demanded of a post-mortem of the bodies. The Police Chief further avoided any judgment about the time and murder of the people in these graves saying, “I can’t say anything about the time and reasons of murder of these people until post-mortem report of these bodies is not issued.”

Bamiyan Police Chief also said that it isn’t yet clear as to who these people were and who had killed them and buried them but he added that the clothing and shoes obtained from these graves indicate that they were “civilians”. In the meanwhile, Muhammad Nadir Fahimi, Deputy Governor Bamiyan while talking to the same foreign news channel said that the investigating team which had traveled to Bamiyan will soon release their findings. The Deputy Governor also told that on the orders of the team, these graves have been sealed and put under security monitoring. In addition, teams of medical experts will also travel for the post-mortem of these bodies.

Mr. Fahimi maintained, “The security forces have been ordered to protect these graves so that these graves are not damaged. Further investigation has been relayed to the medical experts who will travel to Bamiyan in a period of one and half month. Then they will give their complete views about these graves.”

These are not the first ‘mass graves’ discovered in Bamiyan. Such graves have also been discovered in the province before which have been dated to the Taliban era in the province. In the last couple of years of Taliban rule over Afghanistan, Taliban attacked and captured the Shiite dominated Persian speaking Bamiyan province killing thousands of civilians and destroying the historic Buddha statues.

Yakawlang was one of the most affected districts of Bamiyan where people were burnt alive in their houses by the Taliban elements. The discoveries of such graves are clear evidences of atrocities the people of Bamiyan had faced under the harsh regime of extremist Taliban.