NAJAF, Iraq —
Iraqi authorities have exhumed the remains of 15 people from a mass
grave believed to hold dozens more likely killed under dictator Saddam Hussein,
an official said Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
The mass grave was first discovered in April near
the southern city of Najaf, during work to build a residential compound.
It is believed to date back to the 1990s, when
Saddam unleashed a deadly campaign against members of the majority
Shiite Muslim community in southern Iraq that left nearly 100,000 dead.
“There could be 100 victims in this grave. It is an
estimation, the number could be higher due to the large size of the area,” said
Abdul Ilah Al-Naeli, who heads a government foundation tasked with finding mass
graves and identifying the remains.
Calling the burial “the scene of the crime”, Naeli
said the mass grave dates back to the “1991 popular (Shiite) uprising” against
Saddam.
An AFP
correspondent saw skulls and other human remains near the construction site
where cement buildings have been erected.
According to Iraqi authorities, more than one
million people disappeared under Saddam’s regime — including from the Kurdish
minority — in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of their families are still trying
to ascertain what happened to them.
Iraq pays tribute to the missing on May 16, which is
known in the war-wracked country as the National Day of Mass Graves. Saddam was
toppled in the US-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003 and executed in December 2006..
The oil-rich country has been hit by waves of
conflict in subsequent decades, culminating in the fight against the jihadist
group Daesh, which ended in 2017.
Authorities in
Iraq are frequently announcing the discovery of mass graves, the latest in
March when the remains of 85 Daesh islamic extremists and their relatives were
exhumed in the northern city of Mosul.
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