Iraqi authorities mentioned Sunday that that they had exhumed the stays of 85 ISIS group fighters and their family members from a mass grave within the northern metropolis of Mosul.
The stays of 35 individuals killed between 2016 and 2017 have been dug up on Saturday whereas 50 have been discovered on Sunday and “work is ongoing”, mentioned Hassan Wathiq al-Anzi, head of forensics in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province.
Employees unearthed bones and skulls, inserting them in black baggage for transportation to the forensic division, an AFP correspondent mentioned.
It’s the first announcement of a mass grave of ISIS fighters killed in the course of the 2016-2017 battle to recapture Mosul, the extremist group’s former stronghold.
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Anzi was unable to supply an estimate of the whole variety of our bodies on the web site nor the exact circumstances of their deaths.
ISIS seized giant swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” and killing 1000’s there earlier than Baghdad declared victory in 2017.
The United Nations says the group left behind greater than 200 mass graves that might comprise as many as 12,000 our bodies.
The Mosul web site was situated behind a mosque in a residential space within the Al-Rifai district, Anzi mentioned, including that DNA samples could be taken to determine the our bodies.
Nineveh’s civil defence mentioned that whereas digging started on Saturday, the authorities have been beforehand conscious of the location’s location.
Iraq continues to find mass graves not solely from the ISIS interval but in addition from the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.
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