ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Taliban authorities say they have discovered a mass grave in Afghanistan’s eastern Khost province containing around 100 bodies. The site is believed to be 45 years old, dating back to the Soviet occupation.
The grave was discovered during the excavation for a water dam near Sheikh Zayed University in Khost city. The Taliban authorities revealed that women’s clothing was found during the examination of the grave, indicating that both men and women were buried together at the site.
Bismillah Bilal, the Taliban-appointed mayor of Khost province, said that a committee had been assigned to investigate the mass grave. The 100 bodies have been identified after two days, according to Bilal.
“Some media claim that the people were killed during the first regime of the Islamic Emirate, but the watch which was found in the mass grave is from 50 years back,” Bilal told reporters. “In the grave, there also were religious scholars whose hands were tightened behind by their turbans. Some skulls still had bullets in them. Based on the instruction of the provincial office, we buried the corpses respectfully,” he added.
According to local residents, the remains are believed to be of victims of the violence that ensued after the 1978 Soviet-backed communist coup in Afghanistan.
The recent discovery adds to a grim roster of similar findings, including a mass grave unearthed in the northern Balkh province in 2008, which contained at least 100 bodies believed to be victims of a Taliban massacre during the 1990s.
Local residents in Balkh had told Reuters at the time that they suspected the dead were members of the Hazara ethnic group, massacred after the Taliban captured the area in the late 1990s.
In 2009, Afghan authorities discovered yet another mass grave in the eastern Paktika province, believed to hold the remains of over 500 soldiers from the communist government.
Most recently, in September 2022, the remains of 12 individuals were uncovered in a mass grave in Kandahar’s Spin Boldak district, which borders Pakistan. This location had been a battleground for fierce clashes between former Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters during their two-decade insurgency, which ended with the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021.
The Taliban claimed that the individuals were killed during the tenure of the US-backed government in the country. However, the site has not been independently investigated to verify the claims.
“These were individuals who were arrested from villages by the former cruel commander General Raziq. They were all civilians who were killed and buried in a mass grave,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said, referring to Kandahar’s late police chief, a powerful commander known for his effective battles against Taliban fighters during the 20-year war.
Residents of Khost province, whose relatives have been missing since the Soviet Union’s presence in the country, are calling on international courts and human rights organizations for justice.
