“The remains found belong to 17 members of the Peshmerga,” confirmed Yasmine Mounther, head of the Mass Graves Department - an affiliate of Iraq’s Department of Forensic Medicine - in a press briefing on Thursday.
In an effort to identify the victims, Mounther explained that a two-day campaign was held in the Kurdistan Region’s capital, Erbil, to collect blood samples from families who may be related to the unidentified Peshmerga fighters. Additional samples will be collected from potential relatives the coming week as well, according to Mounther.
ISIS captured large swathes of territory in Iraq’s north and west in 2014, but Baghdad announced the group’s defeat in 2017 after years of conflict. Throughout this period, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces fought on numerous fronts against ISIS to prevent the group’s advance into regions administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The Hawija district, located southwest of Kirkuk province, had long been a stronghold for ISIS in Iraq and was one of the last ISIS-controlled territories in Iraq.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 2023 reported that over 2,000 Peshmerga fighters were killed and more than 10,000 others were wounded in the years-long war against ISIS.
