ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Based on a previous agreement with Erbil and Baghdad the former has handed over thousands of documents, blood samples and other evidence to the Baghdad Forensics Court, that will primarily focus on Yezidis who were kidnapped by ISIS.
“We have submitted our archives of blood tests and information about the missing persons [to the court]. They will enter the information [to a database] and take reports of DNA. Other stages are the digging up of the [mass] graves and taking out the remains [of the victims] as well as taking DNA samples from the remains,” Hassam Abdulrazaq, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Evidence Gathering Office, told Rudaw on Friday.
The Iraqi federal and Kurdistan regional governments agreed in late January to submit all documents to Baghdad Forensics Court which will create a database for all evidence and compare them with ones found on the ground during inspecting the remains of victims, according to Ayman Mustafa, a judge at KRG’s Commission for Investigation and Gathering Evidence (CIGE).
So far 2,604 documents and 1,561 blood samples have been submitted to the court by KRG.
Six members of Yezidi Hazo Saado’s family have been missing for five years including her parents. Saado told Rudaw that her parents were probably killed. She visited CIGE in Duhok to provide a blood sample.
“We also do not know anything about the destiny of my big brother, his wife, one of my sisters who could not walk, and my nephew,” Saado told Rudaw.
More than 6,000 Yezidis went missing when ISIS took control of Shingal in 2014, but only about half of them have been found so far.
Earlier this winter, flash floods swept away many remains at some mass graves in Shingal, making Yezidis fear that the remains of their relatives could get lost in addition to proof of the crimes.
Reporting by: Naif Ramadan