(VOVworld) – Iraqi health minister Adila Hammoud said Thursday that Iraq has exhumed the remains of 470 people believed to have been executed by IS jihadists near Tikrit last year.

Iraqi soldiers transport coffins of the victims believed to be massacred by jihadists after their remains were exhumed from mass graves in Tikrit. (Photo: AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

At a press conference in Baghdad, Adila said these bodies came from four massive burial sites. The biggest grave contained 400 bodies.

The victims were Shiite recruits who were abducted last June in what is now known as the Speicher massacre.

The Iraqi administration is working with international organizations to conduct forensic examinations of the exhumed remains.