Shocking pictures have emerged showing ISIS fighters hugging men accused of being gay before savagely stoning the two to death.
Two more men have reportedly been killed in Syria, for being gay or accused of being gay, in an escalating assault in the area on those ISIS believe are homosexual.
In pictures released by @Raqqa_Si, a campaign group against ISIS and the Assad regime in Raqqa, two men are seen being led to a holding ground in Homs, a city in Western Syria. Surrounded by onlookers they are treated to an informal reading of their crimes before being bludgeoned with rocks and stones until they die from their injuries.
Stoning causes a traumatic death that experts suggest can take between 3 and 10 minutes for the victim to die.
One expert reporting:
“If you are hit in the head with large stones, then it likely wouldn’t take long at all.
But, if you are hit only in the body with smaller stones, then it may take quite a while before you actually die from internal injury/bleeding.”
In pictures released, the men from ISIS apparently hug the charged in a sign of “forgiveness”. Before the stoning commences, an ISIS fighter can be seen, standing by a car, reading out the charges against the accused, using a microphone in a make-shift hearing scenario.
It has not been made clear if the two men were a couple.
There have been a number of chilling executions of men accused of being gay in Syria. Up until now, the men have normally been thrown off tall buildings in the region. Many of the accused survive the fall only to be stoned by the bloodthirsty crowd of spectators.
Hala Jader, award winning journalist for the Sunday Times, tweeted the pictures, saying:
“#Isis stones homosexual couple 2 death.
First they hug them apparently in forgiveness, then kill them.”
