Iraq reopened mass grave to identify victims of one of Islamic State’s worst massacres

The Iraqi authorities announced on Sunday that they have Remains of 123 victims of one of the worst massacres perpetrated by the jihadist group ISIS exhumed from mass grave (EI), to compare their DNA samples with those taken from relatives of the missing.

For weeks, in Baghdad and other parts of the country, dozens of families have donated blood in a try to identify the 583 bodies found in this vast mass grave, near Badush prison, not far from Mosul (northern Iraq).

In 2014, jihadists transported 583 detainees, mostly Shia Muslims, to a ravine before executing them, one of the worst crimes of this group, accused of genocide by the UN, which dug more than 200 mass graves in Iraq, where it is estimated that there could be up to 12,000 bodies.

“Thousands of families are still waiting to find out what happened to their loved ones”, underlined the AFP Najm al Jubburi, governor of the province of Nineveh, where Badush is located.

Earlier this week, the AFP met at the local forensics in Baghdad with Abas Mohamed, whose son Mohanad was arrested in 2005 by the Americans, before ending up in Badush.

“I need an answer that will allow me to achieve peace after 17 years without knowing if my son is alive or dead”, explained on occasion.

Iraq, which still discovers mass graves from the time of the Iraqi regime Saddam Hussein, it takes many years striving to identify the remains of the dead in various episodes of its violent history.

On every occasion, DNA samples are extracted from victims lying in mass graves or natural niches, then compare them with those of the survivors.

Finding traces of DNA in remains exposed to rain, fire and fighting for years is truly a feat., underline the specialists in forensic medicine.

This Sunday, in Badush, again Saleh Ahmed, of the Martyrs Commission, explained to the AFP What “The working conditions are very difficult”. With 30 other busy people, he adds: “we work in the middle of an unbearable heat – not very favorable to the conservation of leftovers – – there are mixed corpses and snakes and scorpions everywhere ”.

(With information from AFP)

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