A Yazidi man stands near the unmarked headstones honoring the victims of the 2014 genocide. Date: October 18, 2023. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Following the exhumation process and identification, the remains of 32 Yazidi victims of the Islamic State (ISIS) will be returned to Shingal (Sinjar) on Friday for burial.
“After their arrival on Friday, a religious ceremony will be organized to honor the remains on Saturday. Official death certificates will be handed over to their families. On Sunday, a funeral will be held to bury them,” Kheiri Ali, director of the Shingal-based Petricor Organization for Human Rights, told Rudaw on Thursday.
Nineteen of the victims are from Kojo village while the rest come from Qne and Snune villages, he said.
ISIS terrorists seized control of Shingal in August 2014 and committed genocide. In the space of a few weeks, an estimated more than 5,000 people were killed, mainly men and older women. As of February 2025, 93 mass graves have been identified, 58 of which have been uncovered and more than 700 remains have been retrieved. The identity of 242 victims were previously verified through DNA tests. There are yet 500 remains in Baghdad whose identities need to be confirmed before returning them to Shingal for burial.
Although the excavation of the mass graves started in 2019 after announcing total military victory over ISIS, the process has been slow as there are 35 more graves that need to be exhumed. Ali said that identification of the remains has been slow because of difficulties getting DNA samples from the many Yazidis who fled Iraq during or after ISIS atrocities, as well as the large numbers of remains that the forensic department is handling after exhuming other mass graves, including those associated with Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds.
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