MOSUL, Iraq: Iraq held a mass funeral on Tuesday for 47 members of the security forces who were executed by the Daesh group a decade ago and whose remains were found in a mass grave.
Many remain missing after disappearing during the militant group’s bloody rule over parts of Iraq from 2014 to 2017, with the United Nations estimating that there may be more than 200 graves containing up to 12,000 people killed in mass executions.
Iraqi authorities continue to uncover new graves, which are concentrated in urban areas.
In a square in the northern city of Mosul, the heart of former Daesh territory, photos of the deceased were on display as members of the security forces carried their coffins draped in the Iraqi flag.
The 47 people were killed by the 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 at the Hamam Al-Alil area around 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Mosul.
“Grief hangs over us,” said university lecturer Ibrahim Al-Jubouri, aged 46, who received the remains of his cousin. He said the grief was 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 to defeat Daesh territorially by late 2017.
Jubouri said the government was too slow in tracking down the missing, given it was years since Baghdad declared Daesh defeated.
The state has also been uncovering mass graves that date back to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who dominated Iraq for decades before being overthrown in the US-led invasion of 2003.
Since 2006, they have found around 290 mass graves, according to the state-run Martyrs Foundation.