Local rights group uncovers mass grave in Egypt’s Sinai

The bodies of more than 300 people could be buried in a mass grave discovered in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula by a local human rights monitor.

In a report published Tuesday, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights said it had identified remains of civilians thought to have been killed during the decade-long conflict between the Egyptian military and Islamist militants in north Sinai.

The research is based on field research and satellite imagery analysed with Forensic Architecture, a research organisation based at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The organisation also collected eyewitness testimony, including from former members of the tribal militia that operated alongside Egyptian security forces.

The bodies were found in a shallow grave close to a military outpost south of El-Arish.

The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights identified the remains of at least 36 bodies but believes the site could contain more than 300.

The organisations documented evidence of torture and extrajudicial killings that they say could amount to war crimes.

"The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights concludes that the violations documented in this report constitute war crimes, as they occurred in the context of a non-international armed conflict and targeted individuals hors de combat in an unlawful manner," the report says.

Egyptian security forces have been accused of committing widespread abuses against civilians in north Sinai during the insurgency, which lasted from 2013 to 2022.

Rights groups have documented a number of crimes, including enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests.

The military has also been accused of forcibly displacing tens of thousands of people during the war, which the government has denied.

It is thought to have demolished more than 12,350 buildings in the area between late 2013 and early 2020.

A group of local and international rights monitors earlier this month called for the UN to block Egypt's candidacy in the upcoming elections for the Human Rights Council.