Iraqi forces discover mass grave containing 89 victims of Camp Speicher massacre
Iraqi authorities exhume a mass grave in Tikrit.
Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi authorities announced on Saturday discovering a mass grave containing bodies of 89 victims of Camp Speicher massacre that were executed by the Islamic State, after capturing the city of Tikrit in June 2014.
A source in Salahuddin Police Command told the Chinese Agency ‘Xinhua’ that security forces received information, obtained from the detained members of the Islamic State, indicating to the presence of a mass grave in the presidential palaces area in central Tikrit, containing remains of Camp Speicher’s victims.
“A specialized committee of the Ministry of Health and Human Rights Watch examined the grave, and exhumed 89 bodies of Camp Speicher’s victims,” the source added.
The source also revealed that the bodies will be sent to the forensic medicine department, in order to identify the identities of bodies.
After capturing the city of Tikrit in June 2014, Islamic State group executed more than 1700 Iraqi soldiers in Camp Speicher base, northwest of Tikrit, then threw dozens of the bodies in the Tigris River and buried hundreds in mass graves.