Iraqi experts begin exhuming bodies at Tikrit mass graves
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forensic teams in the newly recaptured city of Tikrit have started exhuming bodies from mass graves believed to contain some of the hundreds of soldiers killed by ISIL militants last year, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
Kamil Amin from Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry said the work started on Monday on eight locations inside Tikrit’s complex of presidential palaces, where much of the killing is believed to have taken place.
ISIL militants overran Saddam Hussein’s hometown last June, capturing around 1,700 soldiers as they were trying to flee Camp Speicher, an airbase previously used by U.S. troops on the outskirts of Tikrit.
Later, the group posted graphic images online that appeared to show its gunmen massacring scores of the soldiers after loading the captives onto flatbed trucks and then forcing them to lay face-down in a shallow ditch, their arms tied behind their backs.
Other videos showed masked gunmen bringing the soldiers to a bloodstained concrete river waterfront inside the presidential palaces complex in Tikrit, shooting them in the head and throwing them into the Tigris River.
After weeks of bitter clashes, Iraqi forces and allied Shiite militias succeeded in retaking Tikrit from ISIL. Their victory was helped by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
Amin told The Associated Press that at least 12 bodies were exhumed on Monday. Lab tests will be carried out to match them with DNA samples that have already been taken from families of around 85 per cent of the victims.
“The work is continuing and we expect to discover more mass graves in different areas,” Amin said. “We expect a huge number of bodies to be unearthed.”
During their blitz last year, ISIL extremists also carried out other mass killings in other areas.