Remains of 2014 ISIS victims returned to families
Shafaq News- Kirkuk/ Al-Anbar/ Babil
The remains of several Iraqi soldiers and fighters killed during fighting against ISIS in 2014, including a senior army officer, were returned to their families on Sunday after nearly 12 years.
Kirkuk Provincial Council member Ahmed Abdulwahid Al-Hamdani said authorities had recovered the remains of Staff Brig. Gen. Hilal Matar Saleh Al-Azzi, an Iraqi Defense Ministry officer who had been listed as missing since fighting in the Al-Anbar desert in 2014.
Al-Hamdani told Shafaq News that Al-Azzi was killed while on military duty and that his remains would be handed to his family for burial.
Read more: Inside Iraq's ongoing search for answers in ISIS mass graves
Families in Al-Anbar buried the remains of four members of the Albu Nimr tribe — Khamis Mohammed Abd Al-Nimrawi, Ayman Hamid Hamza Al-Nimrawi, Mohammed Tahmaz Hamza Al-Nimrawi and Ahmed Tahmaz Hamza Al-Nimrawi — after DNA tests confirmed their identities.
ISIS killed the four in the Albu Assaf area in 2014. Funeral ceremonies were held in Hit district and Al-Furat subdistrict, with officials, security personnel and residents in attendance.
Read more: Iraq's mass graves: A record of violence across five decades
Albu Nimr was among the Sunni tribes that resisted ISIS during its advance across western Iraq. Tribal forces in Al-Anbar played a major role alongside Iraqi security forces in fighting the group, and communities that opposed ISIS were repeatedly targeted by its militants.
Families in Babil also buried the remains of residents of the Awfi area who were killed during the early stages of the 2014 mobilization against ISIS, nearly 12 years after their deaths.
The cases are part of a much wider effort to identify Iraqis who disappeared or were killed during ISIS’s 2014-2017 occupation of large parts of northern and western Iraq.
A 2018 UN report documented 202 mass graves in areas formerly controlled by ISIS across Nineveh, Kirkuk, Saladin and Al-Anbar, with an estimated 6,000 to more than 12,000 victims.
Read more: HRW urges Iraq to intensify mass grave exhumations
Iraq’s identification backlog extends beyond ISIS-era cases. In May, the Medico-Legal Directorate was holding around 13,000 sets of remains recovered from mass graves across the country pending DNA matching and identification.
