BAGHDAD: Iraq on Tuesday began exhuming the remains of dozens of victims, including children, likely killed during ex-dictator Saddam Hussein鈥檚 campaign against the country鈥檚 Kurds, a forensics official told AFP.
The mass grave was uncovered in Tal Al-Sheikhiya, about 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of Baghdad, said Zaid Al-Youssef, the head of Baghdad鈥檚 Medico-Legal Directorate which is tasked with identifying the remains.
鈥淢ore than 70 bodies including women and children, ranging from newborns to 10 years old鈥� have so far been exhumed, Youssef said.
Those remains were recovered from the surface layer of the site, he said, but 鈥渢here could be a second deeper layer鈥� with additional bodies.
鈥淭he evidence collected indicates they were summarily executed in 1988,鈥� said Youssef, which coincides with Saddam鈥檚 brutal 鈥淎nfal鈥� campaign against Iraq鈥檚 Kurds.
The operation took place between 1987 and 1988 and saw nearly 180,000 Kurds killed and more than 3,000 villages destroyed.
鈥淭he female victims were blindfolded and killed by gunshots to the head, but also have traces on various parts of their bodies of bullets that were fired randomly,鈥� Youssef said.
The grave lies in the southern province of Mutahanna, also home to the notorious Nigrat Salman prison camp.
Many Kurds and political opponents of the previous regime were held there, and survivors shared tales of humiliation, rape and detention of minors as part of Saddam鈥檚 2006 trial.
Iraq has been hit by wave after wave of conflict in recent decades, culminating in the fight against the Daesh group which ended in late 2017.
Those years of conflict left grave sites all across the country where the remains of thousands of victims from Iraq鈥檚 diverse ethnic and religious communities have been uncovered.
IS alone left behind an estimated 200 mass graves that could hold up to 12,000 bodies, the United Nations has said.
Authorities are testing remains from the most recent conflict as well as wars dating back three decades in an effort to identify the fates of missing Iraqis.
According to Iraqi authorities, Saddam鈥檚 regime forcefully disappeared more than one million people in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of their families are still trying to find out what happened to them.