Iraq begins exhuming new mass grave in Tal Afar, Nineveh

Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Mass Graves Directorate, under the Martyrs Foundation, has begun the process of opening a mass grave located in the Saad neighborhood of Tal Afar district, discovered within an unfinished school in Nineveh governorate.

Although the Directorate has not disclosed the number of bodies uncovered, they emphasized that the exact numbers, as well as the gender and ages of the deceased, will be determined through specialized forensic procedures in Baghdad.

In a related development, the Directorate resumed operations at the "Alu Antar" grave site, north of Tal Afar. Previously, they had concluded their work at this site after recovering 159 bodies, but new remains have since been uncovered, prompting further excavation efforts.

The mass graves discovered in and around Mosul, including Tal Afar, are a haunting reminder of the atrocities committed by ISIS during its occupation of the region from 2014 to 2017.

As part of its brutal campaign, ISIS carried out mass executions of civilians, Iraqi security forces, and religious minorities, burying the victims in unmarked graves.

The most notorious of these crimes occurred against the Yazidi community, where thousands were systematically executed or enslaved.

ISIS also targeted Sunni, Shia, and Christian populations in its attempts to consolidate power through terror.