Iraqi authorities have begun exhuming from a mass grave in southern Iraq the remains of around 100 women and children of Kurdish origin who were suspected victims of former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s.
The mass grave was discovered near Tal al Saiqiyya in Al Muthana province, according to a French journalist who was at the scene.
Specialized teams began exhuming the corpses in mid-December. "After the first layer of soil was removed and the remains were clearly visible, it was discovered that they belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish clothes," Dia Karim, the head of the authority responsible for exhuming the mass graves, told AFP.
The victims are likely to have come from Kalari in Sulaymaniyah province in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq in the north of the country.
"A large number of victims were executed here with bullets from point-of-contact shots to the head," Karim said, adding that operations to exhume all the bodies were ongoing.
Another mass grave was discovered nearby, said Durgam Kamel, part of the authority, near the notorious Nugrat Salman prison, where many Kurds and political opponents of the Hussein regime were imprisoned.
Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in 2003 after the US invaded Iraq, was hanged on charges of "genocide" against some 180,000 Kurds in the brutal "Anfal" campaign launched against the Kurds by the Hussein regime in 1987 and 1988. (A2 Televizion)
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