The reign of terror of “Islamic State” is history, but many of its victims are still missing. Their remains are believed to be in mass graves. However, exhumations are progressing slowly.
Cemetery for victims of IS near Mosul
“My brother was arrested by the 'Islamic State' (IS),” says Abdullah Ramadan Mohammed from the central Iraqi city of Hawija. When IS took the city by force in early summer 2014, the extremists accused Mohammed's brother of espionage. The reason: he had worked for the Iraqi government – that was enough for the accusation. The espionage allegation was “complete nonsense,” says Mohammed in an interview with DW.
His brother has not returned to this day, he is considered missing. For months, Mohammed had been trying to get information about the missing person. He also visited several IS-run prisons, but found nothing about his brother's whereabouts, not even after the Iraqi army expelled IS from Hawija in late 2017. No information, no traces.” “Now there is nobody here I can ask,” says Mohammed. “I will never forget him. But what can I do?!”
Mourning together: Relatives of IS victims in Hawija
Thousands dead or missing
Mohammed is just one of thousands of Hawija citizens who still have no certainty about the fate of their abducted family members after the end of the terror regime of IS. When ISIS left Hawija, around 7,000 people were dead and 5,000 missing in the city.
His brother's body is believed to be in one of the mass graves near the city. But Mohammed and his family will have to wait until the identities of the dead can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
So far, the Iraqi government's Directorate for Mass Graves, responsible for identification, has only authorized the exhumation of graves at one location on planned at the foot of the Hamrin Mountains in north-eastern Iraq. Yazidi women are said to be buried there who tried to escape from IS and were killed.
According to the United Nations, more than 200 mass graves linked to IS have been found in Iraq. They could contain up to 12,000 bodies.
Last rest: coffins at a mass funeral of IS victims , December 2021
Barely progress on exhumation
So far, his team has only been able to carry out exhumations at 29 of 114 places where IS victims are buried, says Dia Karim Saidi, head of the directorate. The mortal remains of around 3,000 people are believed to be in the 81 community graves found so far. The directorate also works with investigators from UNITAD, the UN investigative team that prosecutes crimes committed by ISIS. Also on site is the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).
Most of these exhumed graves contained the bodies of members of the Yazidi ethnic-religious minority. The IS is accused of having committed genocide against them. The majority of these graves are located in northern Iraq's Sinjar province, the traditional home of the faith community. Many of the human remains have been identified, and some were subsequently buried.
But that causes some resentment in Hawija. The investigation of Yazidi graves is given priority, complain family members of Sunni missing persons. When asked about this, Karim Saidi blames the insufficient funding of the directorate he heads. His team only has 45 members, and there are numerous resources missing. “We need the funds from UNITAD and ICMP to be able to work,” he says. It is the UN organizations that decide which mass graves have priority, he suggests in this way.
Dima Babili, spokeswoman for the ICMP, denies this. It is the local authorities who set the schedule for conducting excavations. “Our goal is to support Iraq in creating a sustainable process to find all missing persons, regardless of their origin, time or circumstances of their disappearance.”
Meticulous work: Examination of human bones from mass graves in the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, 2019
Saddam's murky legacy
Iraq also has a historical burden to bear when exhuming mass graves. The dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in 2003, was responsible for mass graves in 98 locations in the country. Of these, 22 have not yet been exhumed. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Iraq has the highest number of missing people in the world: estimates range from 250,000 to one million people.
In addition to the large number of graves, the personnel of the Iraqi exhumation teams face other difficulties. Sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate. Or there are still smaller IS cells in an area and pose an incalculable risk.
The uncertainty about the fate of relatives is paralyzing, says Ahmed al-Muhairi, a local tribal leader. His father and uncle are also missing. “The family still hopes they will return,” he says. But the probability of that happening is zero, he believes. “That's why we don't talk about what happened to them. The topic is taboo.”
Al-Muhairi believes his relatives will probably never be found. He has already asked various government agencies – without results. “The authorities prefer to forget what happened,” he says.
Sad farewell: Yazidi women at a mass funeral of IS victims, December 2021
Discrimination to the grave?
Many of the unexamined mass graves are in Sunni areas. The IS itself refers to Sunni Islam. But that hasn't stopped his militias from killing Sunni Muslims.
Iraq's Sunnis often complain that their remains are hardly ever exhumed – with a similar argument as with regard to the Yazidi IS victims: Mass graves, which presumably contained Shiite IS victims, have long been different from Sunni victims mostly exhumed. Discrimination against others is felt here even after death.
The uncertainty about the fate of the disappeared is not only grueling for relatives. It also has some economic implications. The widow of Mohammed's missing brother, for example, has returned to her parents' house with the couple's children. So far she has been waiting in vain for a state widow's pension. This is because the Iraqi government only pays once the death of her husband is proven.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of families who are missing loved ones,” said the governor of the province of Ninewa, Najm Jibouri, recently. The provincial capital of Nineveh, Mosul, was also occupied by IS. Accordingly, there are also mass graves there. “The survivors continue to be concerned. Therefore, we must immediately identify all the bodies in these mass graves,” said Jibouri.