Twenty-six more bodies were discovered in rebel-held city of Afrin in northern Syria, a local Turkish official confirmed on Thursday.
"We announced the numbers yesterday, it was 35, but as of the morning, the toll increased to 61 and the excavation work still continues,"Rahmi Dogan, governor of the southern Hatay province, said.
The excavation began after receiving information that the Kurdish YPG militia had buried mass remains at an unused plot of land in the Afrin in January 2018, he said, fearing that the number of bodies removed from the mass grave could rise further.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s National Defense Ministry said 35 bodies were found from the same area.
Turkey’s military backed by Syrian opposition forces seized Afrin, a mainly Kurdish district, from the YPG in March 2018 in a major offensive.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist group linked to Kurdish militants on its own soil and has mounted military operations in northern Syria to push it back from the border.
Ten years of war in Syria have killed 500,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6.7 million as refugees to neighbouring countries.
With AA
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