The Iraqi Directorate of Mass Graves at the Martyrs Foundation began on Saturday the excavation work at the mass grave in the Saad neighborhood in Tal Afar, discovered inside a school under construction in Nineveh Governorate.
Many mass graves have previously been discovered in the Tal Afar district, dating back to the period of ISIS’s control over the area. One of the most prominent of these graves is “Bir Alo Antar,” where remains of over 100 bodies were extracted from this site, ten years after the executions took place.
According to officials, these graves contain the bodies of victims killed by ISIS members during their control of the area in June 2014, mostly from the local population.
The Directorate has not disclosed the number of bodies found but confirmed that the exact numbers, genders, and ages will be determined by the Forensic Medicine Directorate after special procedures at its headquarters in Baghdad.
On the other hand, the Directorate resumed its work at the “Alo Antar” grave site north of Tal Afar, after previously announcing the completion of the removal of 159 bodies, following the discovery of new remains.
These operations are part of the efforts to achieve justice for the victims, identify their identities through DNA tests, and match the samples with relatives of the missing, followed by returning the remains to their families.
