The country has as many as one million missing persons after decades of conflict. Forensic teams face huge challenges to document remains as families wait in hope of closure
- Text by Marta Bellingreri and photographs by Alessio Mamo in Mosul, Iraq
When Dhorgham Abdelmajid first arrived at the 20-metre-deep hole in Tal Afar district, in northern Iraq, in June, he says he saw something he had never witnessed in his 15 years working as an excavator of mass graves.
“It was unlike other mass graves where bodies are buried underground. Here the corpses, piled eight metres high, were clearly visible and also well preserved because it’s very dry.”
Alo Antar hole, the site of a mass grave in Tal Afar district of northern Iraq
