Iraqi security forces have found the bodies of 53 men shot recently near a town south of Baghdad, police say.
The men, who were still bound and had gunshot wounds to the head or chest, were found in Hamza al-Gharbi, 30km (18 miles) south-east of the city of Hilla.
It was not immediately clear who the victims were or why they were killed.
The mainly Shia area has not seen any activity by the jihadist-led Sunni rebels who have seized control of large swathes of northern and western Iraq.
However, to the north is an area of Babil province that became known as the “Triangle of Death” because of the ferocity of the sectarian violence there in the years that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
At the peak of the civil war in 2006 and 2007, dozens of bullet-ridden bodies were found each day on Iraq’s streets.
BBC
