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(Beirut) – The bodies of hundreds of thousands of victims of unlawful killings remain buried in mass graves across the country. IraqHuman Rights Watch said today that the graves contain victims of past conflicts, including those of Saddam Hussein. Genocide The 1988 Kurdish The Holocaust Between 2014 and 2017, it was attacked by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS).
The United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by the Islamic State (UNITAD), established by the UN Security Council in 2017 to document serious crimes committed by the Islamic State in Iraq, has supported the Iraqi government’s Mass Graves Authority and Forensic Medicine Bureau in excavating 67 mass graves The United Nations International Investigation and Coordination Center has been committed to investigating terrorist activities related to the Islamic State during its term of office. However, at the end of 2023, at the request of the Iraqi government, the UN Security Council decided to extend the mandate of the International Investigation and Coordination Center for only one year, which means that it will cease work in September 2024.
“The exhumation of mass graves, a painful reminder of the most violent chapter in Iraq’s history, is essential to providing hope for justice and healing to the families of the victims and the country as a whole,” he said. Sarah SambalIraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “People have the right to know the fate of their loved ones and to give them a proper and dignified burial.”
The Iraqi Strategic Center for Human Rights estimates that Iraq’s mass graves contain 400,000 peopleIraq is Missing persons An estimated 250,000 to 1 million people were killed worldwide, many of whom are believed to be buried in mass graves.
To provide justice and accountability for the victims and their families, the Iraqi government should step up efforts to exhume graves, identify the victims, return remains to families for proper burial, issue death certificates, and compensate families, all in accordance with Iraqi law, Human Rights Watch said.
Dhiaa Kareem Taama, director of the Iraqi federal government’s Department of Mass Grave Affairs and Protection, told Human Rights Watch that officials have excavated 288 mass graves since 2003. “As long as there is no unified national register, we have no way of knowing how many people may be buried in mass graves,” Taama said.
Between 2017 and 2023, the team assisted Iraqi authorities in exhuming 1,237 Camp Memories of the HolocaustBetween June 12 and 14, 2014, ISIS killed 1,700 soldiers, cadets and volunteers who escaped from the Air Force Academy in Tikrit, who were buried in 14 graves and two river crime scenes were discovered. Report There are reasonable grounds to believe that the killing was carried out with genocidal intent, which is equivalent to Crimes against humanity and War crimes.
Most recently, on May 28, 2024, Iraqi authorities and the UN IFF announced that they had begun excavating Hello, Between the Pita mass grave in the Tal Afar area. The mass grave, located about 60 kilometers west of Mosul, is believed to contain the bodies of more than 1,000 people. Between 2014 and 2017, ISIS used the grave to carry out mass executions and dump bodies.
But with the September 17 Deadline The termination of the UN international investigation team’s operations in Iraq has raised concerns that the gap they left may not be adequately filled by the Iraqi authorities.
“Our only hope as victims and survivors is the UN International Commission of Inquiry,” one man whose father, brother, and two uncles were found buried in a mass grave south of Sinjar told Human Rights Watch. “After they leave, a lot of things will be worse. I’m not sure the Iraqi government is capable of filling the void left by the UN International Commission of Inquiry.”
“Of course, when they (the UN international investigation team) leave, there will be a vacuum,” Tamar said. “But the Iraqi government has announced that the team’s mandate has expired, so we have to have a replacement plan.”
The large number of cases, coupled with the limited capacity of the Iraqi government, means that the process is extremely slow for the victims’ families.
In October 2017, a shepherd discovered a mass grave in Sabahiya, Sinjar district, containing the remains of a man’s father, brother and two uncles. Two years later, the remains were exhumed and sent to Baghdad for identification. “It’s been five years, and until now we haven’t heard anything from the Forensic Medical Directorate,” the man said. “We don’t know why.”
The man said he could not obtain a death certificate until his relative’s remains were identified. Without a death certificate, his family could not apply for compensation under the Law on Compensation for Families of Victims of Terrorism. Law No. 20 of 2009.
Tama told Human Rights Watch that there is only one laboratory in Iraq authorized to conduct DNA tests on remains exhumed from mass graves: the Forensic DNA Laboratory in Baghdad.
In preparation for the evacuation, the UN team has been supporting the Forensic DNA Laboratory of the Medical Examiner Bureau Get certified International Organization for Standardization ISO/IEC 17025Accreditation means that the Baghdad laboratory’s test results will be internationally recognized and its results will be accepted as evidence in courts around the world.
Khabat Abdullah, an advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Martyrs and Anfal Affairs Department, told Human Rights Watch that the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Interior Criminal Investigation Division has a laboratory capable of conducting DNA tests on five to seven bodies of human remains per day. Mass Grave Protection Act (Law No. 5 of 2006) states that only laboratories in Baghdad are authorized to analyze DNA samples collected from mass graves.
Sabah Sabri’s father and uncle were killed by ISIS in 2014 and thrown into a mass grave in Khanasur. “I recognized my father by his clothes. My neighbor also recognized his father because he had medicine and house keys on him,” Sabah told Human Rights Watch.
Kurdish officials collected DNA samples from Sabah and other community members to confirm the identities of the remains in the grave. Sabah later received official confirmation that his father was among the bodies found in the grave.
Despite this, Sabah said that as of July, his family had not received his father’s death certificate. “The Iraqi federal government refused to recognize the DNA test conducted by the Kurdish authorities, so they did not give us a death certificate. The Kurdish autonomous government told us that they would issue a death certificate for us, but the federal authorities told us that they would not recognize it either.”
Without a death certificate, the family can’t collect his pension or any other government benefits. “It cost me more than $3,000 and took seven years to get his death certificate,” Saba said.
For the families of victims buried in mass graves, the pace of exhumation and bureaucratic hurdles that have prevented them from bringing an end to the catastrophe are compounding the pain. “My father’s remains were recently identified,” said Shireen Khairo, whose father was killed by ISIS and found buried in a mass grave in Khadan, Sinjar district. “But we only received half of his skeleton. I cannot describe how painful and torturous this process is for the soul.”
When Rebwal Ramazan was one year old, his father, grandfather, six uncles and 105 other family members were captured, killed and buried in an unmarked mass grave in southern Iraq. Rebwal’s family was one of 8,000 men in the Barzan region. Killed In 1983, Saddam Hussein’s government Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Court It was ruled an act of genocide and crimes against humanity.
In 2019, Ramazan traveled to Samawah in southern Iraq to join in the excavation of a recently discovered mass grave from the era. “My mom told me that when they took my father away, he was only wearing one sock, so I searched among all the remains for a bone with one sock on, thinking maybe I could find him,” Ramazan said.
Abdullah told Human Rights Watch that so far, the remains of approximately 2,500 Kurds killed between 1980 and 1988 have been recovered from mass graves and returned to the Kurdistan Region.
Digging mass graves is essential to ensure The right to the truth Ensure that Iraq is able to fulfil its obligations to ensure effective remedies and reparations and to conduct effective investigations. Evidence collected from mass graves can and should be used in criminal proceedings to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.
The Iraqi government should increase its efforts to exhume mass graves across Iraq in an impartial manner, regardless of the identities of the victims and suspected perpetrators. The government should also increase funding for the Mass Graves Authority and the Forensic Medical Directorate to strengthen their evidence-gathering capabilities, including through digital surveys and crime scene reconstructions, biological material storage facilities, and victim identification procedures.
“The exhumation of all Iraq’s mass graves requires a serious and sustained commitment from the Iraqi authorities, a commitment that absolutely must be made,” said Sambar. “Without it, it will be impossible to heal the wounds of the past.”
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