Ambassador Mohammad al-Hakim told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that over the past several weeks, bodies have been found in shallow graves with surgical incisions and kidneys and other body parts missing. “We have bodies. Come and examine them,” he told reporters, according to The Telegraph. “It is clear they are missing certain parts.”
The ambassador also said that dozens of doctors have been executed in Mosul, apparently because they refused to harvest organs from executed prisoners. Alhakim also briefed the Security Council on the latest situation in Iraq, and in doing so, accused ISIS of “crimes of genocide” in the targeting of certain ethnic groups, says CBS News.
The U.N. Envoy to Iraq, Nikolay Mladenov substantiated Alhakim’s accusations, noting the increasing number of reports alleging that ISIS was harvesting organs. “it’s very clear that the tactics ISIS is using expand by the day. Especially worrying is the increasing number of reports of revenge attacks committed particularly against members of the Sunni community in areas liberated from [ISIS] control,” he said.
Mladenov’s comment about ISIS finding an alternative method of financing their operations is based on a Pentagon press briefing held on Feb. 3, 2015. Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters “The main source of revenue for them used to be oil. But we know that oil revenue is no longer the lead source of their income in dollars.”
