(VOVWORLD) - Iraqi authorities on Monday discovered the remains of 158 bodies believed to belong to soldiers of Speicher Camp who were executed by Islamic State (ISIS) militants when the group seized Tikrit in 2014.
The mass grave was found inside a presidential complex of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to the Iraqi government. The team exhumed the 158 decomposed bodies and began DNA testing to identify the victims.
The discovered bodies are believed to be part of 1,700 soldiers who walked out of an air base, known as Camp Speicher, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, but were abducted and then killed by ISIS militants and some Sunni tribesmen.
After Iraqi security forces recaptured Tikrit in 2015, authorities, including forensic teams, worked at several mass graves and unearthed hundreds of bodies. So far, the health ministry has handed over 700 martyrs of the Speicher massacre to their families.