MOSUL: Iraqi authorities have removed the remains of 139 people from a large pit believed to contain victims of the Islamic State group (IS), an official said on Sunday.

It is uncertain how many bodies were dumped in the pit, as search efforts for other victims were ongoing.

The Alo Antar hole — a natural desert feature turned into a mass grave by IS jihadists — is located in Tal Afar, some 70km west of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Bodies taken to forensic dept for DNA testing

“We have removed the remains of 139 persons and also human body parts,” said Dia Karim, director of the mass graves department at the Foundation of Martyrs, a government institution tasked with finding mass graves and identifying remains.

“They include women and men,” Karim said, adding that “according to testimonies, the victims date back to IS rule” or before when Al-Qaeda was present in the area.

Testimonies also suggest, according to Karim, that the victims were Yazidis, Shia Turkmen and security forces personnel from Mosul, which was the de facto capital of self-declared ‘caliphate’ of the militant Islamic State.

At its peak, the IS militants committed beheadings, torture and enslavement, turning life into a living hell and leaving behind many mass graves in the parts of Iraq and Syria. In northern Iraq, they committed some of their worst atrocities against the Yazidis — an ethnic and religious minority — including mass executions and slavery.

DNA testing

The bodies recovered from Alo Antar were taken to forensic departments to be identified using DNA testing.

Ahmed al-Assadi from the Foundation of Martyrs said the victims “were not buried but dumped in the hole,” whose full depth ranges between 42 and 12 metres.

“Some of the victims had been shot and others were found with their throats cut,” and several bodies were found in body bags.

Assadi added that some of the clothing found on them indicated that they

might have been Yazidis or Turkmen, adding that other bodies were found in orange jumpsuits of the kind typically worn by IS hostages.

The mass grave was discovered after Iraqi forces retook control of the area in 2017, though work to recover the bodies started in May this year.

Iraqi authorities frequently announce the discovery of mass graves of IS victims, as well as those containing IS jihadists themselves and others dating to the rule of dictator Saddam Hussein, but the identification process is slow, costly and complicated.

Over 200 mass graves: UN

The United Nations estimates the jihadists left behind more than 200 mass graves which might contain as many as 12,000 bodies.

A similar but much larger sinkhole known as al-Khasfa in northern Iraq is also thought to contain the bodies of many IS victims.

In northern Syria, a 50-metre-deep gorge has been used as a dumping site for bodies during and after IS rule, according to a 2020 Human Rights Watch report.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2024