Shafaq News- Nineveh (Updated at 13:04)

Iraqi authorities held an official funeral on Tuesday for the remains of 47 soldiers and civilians executed by ISIS during its occupation of Mosul between 2014 and 2017.

Nineveh Governor Abdul Qader Al-Dakhil and Nineveh Court of Appeal President Judge Raed Hamid Al-Musleh oversaw the ceremony, attended by provincial council members, government and security officials, and victims’ families.

A father of one of the victims told Shafaq News that victims were detained in villages south of Mosul during the wave of displacement that followed the launch of the offensive to retake the area in October 2016. ISIS rounded up about 610 people at the time, most of them from the Jubour tribe. “Nearly 300 were executed that same month at the College of Agriculture in Hammam al-Alil, and others were killed at different sites and burial grounds, including al-Buseif.”

Among the dead were police officers, soldiers and members of the Sahwa, the Sunni tribal forces that fought al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as clerics, children and other civilians, he said.

A first group of about 20 was returned to families about a year ago, and more remains are expected to be handed over once DNA matching is complete, the father said.

A local source told Shafaq News on Monday that teams from Iraq’s Martyrs Foundation, the state body responsible for victims of terrorism, had recovered the remains from a mass grave south of Mosul and identified them through recent DNA testing.

Read more: Iraq's mass graves: A record of violence across five decades

ISIS seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014 and held it until Iraqi forces recaptured it in July 2017. Numerous mass graves have since been uncovered in areas formerly controlled by the group.

A 2018 joint report by the UN Human Rights Office and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) documented 202 mass grave sites across Iraq, most of them in Nineveh, Kirkuk, Saladin, and Al-Anbar provinces, containing the remains of civilians, including women, children, older people, and persons with disabilities, as well as Iraqi military and police personnel.

Read more: Discover Iraq: Nineveh rebuilds its heritage and future