Baghdad [Iraq], August 18: The Iraqi government has begun excavating a mass grave near the city of Mosul where thousands of people are believed to have been executed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Ahmed al-Assadi, director of Iraq's grave excavation project , said the first phase, launched on August 10, includes surface excavation at the Khasfa sinkhole, about 20 km south of Mosul , to search for victims killed during the period when IS controlled the area in 2014-2017, according to AFP on August 17.
"This is one of the largest and most tragic mass graves in Iraq . We believe it contains thousands of victims, including soldiers executed by IS and Mosul residents," said Director Ahmed al-Assadi.
According to AFP, the excavation team discovered many human skulls buried in the sand. All the remains will be handed over to the Iraqi Institute of Forensic Medicine for DNA testing to determine the identities of the victims.
Excavation efforts have been hampered by the presence of sulphurous groundwater that has made the ground unstable, potentially damaging the remains and making DNA testing difficult. "This will make DNA testing very difficult. More research is needed before we can start digging deeper. The sinkhole is nearly 150 metres deep and 110 metres wide," said Ahmed al-Assadi.
A 2018 UN report described the Khasfa area as possibly the largest mass grave in Iraq, with official estimates suggesting at least 4,000 bodies, possibly more, were buried there. The UN also estimated that across Iraq, IS may have left more than 200 mass graves, potentially containing up to 12,000 bodies.
Iraqi officials have called Khasfa the site of "one of the worst massacres" carried out by IS, referring to the execution of 280 people in a single day in 2016, many of them Iraqi Interior Ministry employees.
The IS group emerged in 2014 and took control of large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring a self-styled "caliphate" spanning both countries. However, in 2017, Iraqi government forces and militias, backed by a US-led international coalition, drove IS out of Mosul and recaptured all the territory it once controlled.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
