Human Rights Watch accused ISIS and others of using a deep crater in northeastern Syria as a dump site for the bodies of those who kidnapped or held them.

The organization called on the authorities to secure the site, extract human remains from it, and preserve evidence for criminal proceedings against the killers.

Human Rights Watch's investigation of the identity included interviews with locals, a review of videos recorded by the organization, an analysis of satellite images, and the directing of a drone to the 50-meter-deep hole.

ISIS took control of the area around the "Houtha Pit" 85 km north of the city of Raqqa from 2013 to 2015.

"The hotspot, which was once a beautiful natural site, has become a place of terror and cropping. Exposing what happened there and in other mass graves in Syria is essential to determine what happened to the thousands of people executed by ISIS and to hold them accountable," said Sarah Kayali, a researcher on Syria. .

Currently, the Syrian-backed Syrian National Army is in control of the area around Houta, while the Kurdish-led "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDF) still control the city of Raqqa.

The organization called on the parties that control the area to deal with the Hutta and other mass graves in the region as locations where crimes occurred, and to secure them to avoid damaging potential evidence.

"They should make sure that the hotbed is free of landmines and unexploded ordnance so that forensic experts can go down to the hole and locate and transport the bodies, and start the tedious work of identifying the owners," she added.

Local residents told the organization that they had been threatened by ISIS operatives with a hotspot while the organization was controlling the Raqqa area, and some said they saw bodies scattered along the edge of the hole.

A video clip recorded by ISIS and posted on Facebook in 2014 shows a group of men throwing two bodies in the hole.

A poll conducted on the Hotta Crater by a Parot Anavi drones revealed six bodies floating to the surface of the water below, but based on the state of decomposition it appears that the bodies - according to the human rights organization - were dumped there long after the organization left the area.

Some local residents said they had heard of other anti-government armed groups throwing away the bodies of government soldiers and militia fighters loyal to them in Hota.

Geological maps and a three-dimensional topology model of the hottie - prepared according to the pictures of drones - indicate that the crater is deeper than what the plane was able to see, so more human remains are likely to be present beneath the surface of the water.

A report issued by Human Rights Watch in February 2020 documented that ISIS kidnapped and detained thousands of people during its rule in Syria and executed many of them, and revealed that among the missing were activists, humanitarian workers, journalists, and anti-ISIS fighters from various groups, as well as local residents who fled the group. Armed.