Shafaq News- Duhok
A delegation from the Committee for Investigation andGathering Evidence (CIGE) recently visited Baghdad with a specialized judge tofollow up on the case of hundreds of victims whose remains have yet to beidentified, an official from the committee told Shafaq News on Friday.
Colonel Shaker Mahmoud Mirani, a member of CIGE in Duhok, vowedthat the committee is continuing its efforts with the relevant authorities tocomplete the mass graves file in Sinjar and the Nineveh Plains, adding that thelast mass grave to be excavated was in the Mushairifa area on the outskirts of Mosul,where about 15 sets of human remains were recovered. The remains were initiallybelieved to belong only to Kurdish Peshmerga forces, but were later found tobelong to Yazidi victims.
"More than 500 sets of remains have been exhumed frommass graves since 2017 and remain unidentified due to the lack of sufficientblood samples from victims' relatives to conduct DNA matching and return theremains to their families," he noted, clarifying that around 30 mass graves inSinjar are still awaiting excavation, because such operations require significantfinancial allocations and logistical resources. He urged the Council of Representatives to support thisfile and provide the necessary budget to accelerate the operations.
Mirani also said that the remains exhumed in 2016 from amass grave near the Sharaf al-Din Shrine will be sent to the Forensic MedicineDepartment in Baghdad for DNA testing in preparation for identifying thevictims and handing the remains over to their families.
By early August 2025, teams had exhumed 68 of 162 knownburial sites in the district, confirming 293 identities, while more than 450remains remain unidentified. Nearly 2,900 Yazidis are still listed as missing.
Official figures show that 762 Yazidi remains have beenunearthed in Sinjar this year, with 298 identified through DNA analysis andreturned to their families.