Remains of 139 Daesh victims recovered in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD, July 15 (YPA) – Iraqi authorities have recovered the remains of 139 people from a large natural geological pit that appears to have been used by ISIS to dispose of their victims during their control of Nineveh Province in northern Iraq.

The Alo Antar hole — a natural desert feature turned into a mass grave by Daesh extremists — is located in Tal Afar, some 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of Mosul in northern Iraq.

It is not known how many bodies were dumped in the pit, but search efforts for other victims are ongoing.

“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 Daesh rule” or before when Al-Qaeda was present in the area.

Testimonies also suggest, according to Karim, that “the victims are Yazidis, Shiite Turkmen and security forces personnel from Mosul,” the de facto capital of Daesh’s self-declared “caliphate.”

Ahmed 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 meters.

“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 Daesh hostages.

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

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

@E.Y.M