Iraqi Civil Defense rescue teams in cooperation with Forensic Medicine Department and Mosul municipality “managed to retrieve 93 bodies of the victims of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists belonging to unarmed civilians” in separate old Mosul neighborhoods, Civil Defense Director in Nineveh, Brigadier General Hussam Khalil, told Iraqi state’s al-Sabaah news agency on Tuesday.
ISIS controlled Mosul from June 2014 until its liberation by Iraqi forces in July 2017 with the support of the US-led international coalition. Despite more than three years having passed since the liberation of the city from the group, bodies continue to be discovered buried under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings in the city.
Khalil stated that the civil defense determines whether the deceased belong to civilians or ISIS members by having the forensic medicine department conduct DNA tests to match with civilians reported missing.
The bodies were retrieved “during the process of removing rubble” to start the reconstruction of destroyed neighborhoods and government institutions, where “ISIS terrorists used to detain innocent citizens” and execute them en masse, he added.
More than four thousand bodies have been retrieved in Mosul since its liberation, Mosul mayor Zuhair al-Araji told Rudaw’s Sami Zuber on Tuesday.
“More than 2,000 bodies of Daesh (ISIS) militants and around 2,193 bodies of civilians” have been retrieved under destroyed houses and buildings in the city, he added.
Most of Mosul still lays in ruins. Nineveh’s governor Najim al-Jabouri estimated the northern Iraqi city needs more than $20 billion to rebuild.
The 2019 federal budget allocated $560 million for Mosul’s reconstruction, according to Reuters. Due to political turmoil Baghdad did not approve a full budget for 2020.
The budget given to his province “does not match the size of destruction” caused during the Islamic State (ISIS) conflict, said Jabouri.
