The last bodies found in mass graves around the village of Kocho are being examined at the Forensic Institute in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

The main objective is to establish their identity and the causes of the death of these Yazidi victims.

"When we analyze these human remains, we draw up what is called an anthropological profile: we estimate the sex, age and height for each case", describes Mohammed Ihsan, head of the anthropology department of the institute. forensic.

Everything found in these mass graves is analyzed, including the clothes.

Most of these victims are women, children or the elderly.

"As you can see, these clothes, this little t-shirt, belong to a young boy. By analyzing the bones which correspond to this case, we can also estimate that the victim is under 17 years old", shows Mohammed Ihsan.

This forensic institute has a central place to turn the page on jihadists.

This is where the identification of victims takes place, and where a lot of information is gathered that could be used in trials against members of the Islamic State (IS) group, in order to bring justice to the victims and the families of the victims.

The importance of DNA

In addition to the analysis of the bones, the DNA samples are decisive in the identification process, as Mohammad Mesni, director of the DNA analysis laboratory explains: "With a living person, you can use his eyes, his fingerprints. , but in the case of mass graves, where the victims have been buried for several years, the only method to identify this person is DNA analysis ".

Samples are then taken from the local population, in an attempt to establish connections.

But in the case of the Yazidis, the results are poor.

"For the missing in Kocho, more than one family member has often disappeared. Sometimes there is only one person left alive, so it is very difficult to identify these people," says Mohammad Mesni.

Of more than 500 bodies analyzed in recent years, 104 have been identified.

It is the beginning of a long work in Iraq, where the IS left according to the UN more than 200 mass graves, containing up to 12,000 bodies.

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