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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The remains of two adults and a child believed to be burned alive by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 were found in a village in Shingal district on Friday.
A Rudaw team accompanied a Yazidi family to Siba Sheikh Khidir village, where the remains were found in an abandoned house alongside weapons and bullet casings left over from ISIS militants.
“They are my relatives…one of them is my cousin,” Adlan Murad told Rudaw’s Tahsin Qasim at the scene. “After I saw that the house was burnt, I checked and found them. They seem to have been set on fire and killed.”
“We do not know if they were hostages or among those who had fled their rule,” she added.
ISIS militants swept across northern Iraq in August 2014, committing genocide against the Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority who primarily lived in the Shingal district. In the first days of the ISIS attack, militants killed 1,293 people, according to figures from the Kurdistan Region’s office for rescuing kidnapped Yazidis.
“There are scores of mass graves in the village,” added Khatun Salih, who claims to be a relative of the deceased.
The remains have only been discovered now due to fear of approaching abandoned houses in the village, according to the family.
“We are afraid. We can’t move freely. We fear that they could be still here or there could be IEDs,” said Kemal Murad.
Several mass graves have been found in Shingal so far. The Iraqi government, in coordination with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the United Nations (UN), have exhumed some of them. A ceremony was held in Kocho village in October to bury the remains for more than 70 people - all women.
More than 100 Yazidi men and boys were buried in Kocho in February after being formally identified.
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