With support from Ta’afi and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and in coordination with the Iraqi National Team for Mass Graves Affairs, Nadia’s Initiative (NI) recently launched a project to protect and preserve 15 mass graves across Sinjar and promote advocacy on behalf of families still awaiting the return of their loved ones’ remains.
The preservation and timely uncovering of these graves and the identification and return of remains is a critical aspect of justice due to these victims and their families, and will provide a sense of closure denied to them for nearly 10 years.
Background
During the 2014 Yazidi genocide in Sinjar, and subsequent ISIS occupation of territory across northern Iraq, the terror group violently persecuted Yazidis, Shias, and other religious and ethnic communities.
This included numerous mass executions of men, women, and children whose bodies were left in unmarked pits or sinkholes. The United Nations estimates ISIS left behind more than 200 mass graves, which could contain as many as 12,000 bodies, across northern Syria and Iraq.
Yet so far, only 62 grave sites have been exhumed, and only 244 sets of remains have been recovered, identified, and returned to their loved ones.
Nadia Murad’s commitment to victims and survivors
In 2016 and 2017, recognizing the urgent need to reunite remains of the dead with their grieving loved ones, Nadia Murad, together with her lawyer, Amal Clooney, began urging the Iraqi government and UN Security Council (UNSC) to take up the difficult work of exhuming mass graves in Iraq.
This high-level advocacy proved successful when, in 2017, the UNSC passed resolution 2379, formally establishing the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by [ISIS] (UNITAD) with a mandate to collect, preserve, and store evidence in Iraq of acts that might amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide committed by ISIS.
Uncovering the dead and promoting healing
In the last seven years, UNITAD has excavated mass grave sites; documented troves of forensic and physical evidence discovered at those sites; and coordinated with European governments to try and convict former ISIS fighters who fled Iraq after the 2017 liberation of the region.
In 2021, UNITAD also helped uncover and return the remains of two of Nadia’s brothers and others who perished during the August 2014 massacre at Kocho, Nadia’s village. Together with other survivors, Nadia was finally able to properly bury and honor family members lost to ISIS atrocities.
Additionally, throughout UNITAD’s mandate, the NI team has aided in the difficult work of locating and exhuming other mass graves, including six individual sites in Qani village excavated in 2022 that held the remains of more than 70 Yazidi men and children. Building directly on these joint efforts, NI has also worked with other local groups to bury remains, including by building cemeteries for genocide victims in Qani and Hardan villages.
And in August, only days after NI and other groups commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, UNITAD completed excavation of Alo Antar, a grave site in Tal Afar, 70 km west of Mosul, which held remains of 139 Yazidis, Turkmen, and Iraqi security personnel.
Hard work ahead
This labor-intensive work on the ground in Sinjar, carried out through direct coordination among the UN, NI, USAID, Ta’afi, and the Iraqi government, would not have been possible without Nadia’s intervention.
Now, these shared achievements, and the momentum and resources they have generated for uncovering the remains of those killed by ISIS, will help inform a new chapter of projects and advocacy – for there is still much work to be done on behalf of survivors and families whose loved ones still rest in uncovered graves.
Many of those survivors, together with Nadia, are calling again on the Iraqi government and international community to expedite the exhumation of remaining mass graves, identify victims, and return their remains.*
Additionally, with UNITAD’s mandate set to expire next month, Nadia continues to work with government counterparts on a plan to preserve the evidence collected by the UN body and establish a mechanism to continue holding former ISIS fighters accountable for their crimes.
Yazidis still desperately need more help from the international community – but NI refuses to stand idly by and wait for that help to arrive.
So, in addition to protecting mass grave sites with USAID and Ta’afi support, NI is also working closely with families seeking to secure the resources and support owed to them by the Iraqi government, including through visits to meet face-to-face with lawmakers in Baghdad during which survivors will demand further excavations.
Ultimately, stories like those of Jawahir, a survivor of the genocide, remind us of the vital and life-changing link between NI’s targeted advocacy and on-the-ground impact – and demonstrate the pain that will persist as long as the remains of victims lie in the ground:
“For a long time after I survived,” said Jawahir, “I held hope that those who remained in captivity—our fathers, brothers, mothers, and sisters—would also endure, or that at very least their remains would be returned to us for proper burials.
Yet ten years later, the bones of our beloved still rest in the ground, waiting to be exhumed…
…I wonder if the world has forgotten my loved ones. As a survivor myself, I cannot forget. I feel their suffering every single day.
With remains returned, identities verified, and others rescued from captivity, we would once again have some peace of mind. Otherwise, I worry true peace may never come back to my family.”
*This full call to action, issued by a coalition of 50 Yazidi civil society groups, is available here. You can find Nadia’s personal statement on the anniversary here.
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