Near Badush Central Prison, north of Mosul in the Nineveh Governorate, two new mass graves were opened north of Mosul, from which 123 of the 500 remains were recovered.

Nineveh Governor Najm al-Jubouri, in a joint press conference, with the Director of the Department of Affairs and Protection of Mass Graves at the Martyrs Foundation Diaa Karim, and the Director of the Forensic Medicine Department, Hassan Wathiq Raouf, suggested that the Badush cemetery victims are among the prison’s security personnel, noting that “there are dozens of marked graves waiting for us to be disclosed.”

He added, "The largest of these sites is the Khasfa site, south of Mosul, which is a hole hundreds of meters deep, as well as other cemeteries in the Tal Afar district."

For his part, Director of the Department of Affairs and Protection of Mass Graves at the Martyrs Foundation, Diaa Karim, confirmed that “the remains belong to victims who were killed by the terrorist organization ISIS during the period of its control over Mosul after 2014, noting that “the Badush cemetery site is large and complex, where more than 123 of the 500 remains were recovered.”

He added, "The national team alone cannot complete the work of excavating and opening mass graves in Iraq without the assistance of international expertise, due to the difficult terrain and the passage of water through a section of the burial sites."

As for the Director of the Forensic Medicine Department, Hassan Wathiq, he indicated that “his department will develop a plan to facilitate the delivery of the remains to the families of the slain victims after conducting a DNA test, indicating that “the victims are from different governorates of Iraq, and most of them are inmates and employees of Badush Prison and of both sexes.”