Iraq Buries 47 Security Forces Members Executed by Daesh, Remains Recovered From Mass Graves

• Victims’ remains were recovered from a mass grave.
• Many individuals remain unaccounted for from the Daesh era.

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq held a mass funeral on Tuesday for 47 members of its security forces who were executed by Daesh militants a decade ago and whose remains were recently uncovered in a mass grave.

Many people remain missing after disappearing during the militant group’s brutal rule over parts of Iraq from 2014 to 2017. United Nations estimates suggest that more than 200 graves may contain up to 12,000 people killed in mass executions.

Iraqi authorities continue to uncover new burial sites, which are concentrated in urban areas.

In a square in the northern city of Mosul, the heart of former Daesh territory, photographs of the deceased were displayed as members of the security forces carried coffins draped in the Iraqi flag.

The 47 individuals were killed by militants in 2016, Dhurgham Kamel, deputy director general of the Department of Mass Graves and the Missing, told AFP. They were found in two separate mass graves in the Hamam Al-Alil area, approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Mosul.

“Grief hangs over us,” said Ibrahim Al-Jubouri, a 46-year-old university lecturer who received his cousin’s remains. He said the grief remains fresh, even a decade after his cousin’s death.

Daesh militants swept through eastern Syria and northern Iraq in 2014, threatening to reach Baghdad before being driven back. A US-led coalition intervened in the war, helping Iraqi forces defeat Daesh territorially by late 2017.

Al-Jubouri said the government has been too slow in tracking down the missing, given that years have passed since Baghdad declared Daesh defeated.

The state has also uncovered mass graves dating back to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who dominated Iraq for decades before being overthrown in the US-led invasion of 2003. Since 2006, authorities have found around 290 mass graves, according to the state-run Martyrs Foundation.

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