Gruesome mass grave containing 500 people murdered by Isis brutes uncovered in prison near Mosul

IRAQI soldiers have unearthed a mass grave at a prison near Mosul containing the bodies of hundreds of people executed by Isis brutes.

It's just the latest grisly discovery made by home forces as they finally push the terror group back after more than two years of heavy fighting.

Isis reportedly killed up to 600 people after seizing Badush in 2014, and was also said to have held hundreds of kidnapped women from Iraq's Yazidi minority at the town's prison.

The Iraqi military said forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi - an umbrella group of pro-government forces  - were among the units that recaptured the prison from the jihadists.

Hashed forces found "a large mass grave containing the remains of around 500 civilian prisoners who were executed by (Isis) gangs after they controlled the prison during their occupation of Mosul," the military said.

The Hashed did not say how they reached that figure, but it is in keeping with accounts of Isis killing hundreds of inmates at the jail.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Isis gunmen executed hundreds of inmates from the prison on June 10, 2014, forcing them to kneel along a nearby ravine and then shooting them with assault rifles.

Most of those mercilessly executed were said to have been members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom Isis considers heretics.

The terror group's abuses at the jail did not end with executions.

Iraqi lawmaker Vian Dakhil said the jihadists also held more than 500 Yazidi women at Badush as sex slaves.

The Badush site is not the first mass grave to be found during the Mosul campaign, in which Iraqi forces recaptured areas around the country's second city before battling Isis inside it.