Forensic Teams Reopen Burial Site at Sharfadin Shrine to Identify Ezidi Genocide Victims

Forensic teams have begun reopening a burial site beside the Sharfadin Shrine in northern Shingal to identify Ezidi victims of the 2014 genocide whose remains were reburied without DNA testing more than a decade ago.

The operation began on 20 September 2026 in the presence of victims’ families and following a religious ceremony conducted in accordance with Sharfadin traditions. The remains had previously been recovered from mass graves near Khanasor and Bardiya and were reburied beside the shrine on 13 August 2015 without formal identification or completed DNA examinations.

Because the victims were reburied before the necessary forensic work had been completed, their families were left without confirmation of whose remains were placed at the site. They continued to demand that the grave be reopened so that every victim could be identified and returned to their relatives.

An agreement to begin the process followed discussions involving victims’ families, Ezidi organisations, the International Commission on Missing Persons and the relevant Iraqi authorities. Forensic specialists are now recovering the remains for examination in Baghdad.

The exhumation and related technical procedures are expected to continue until 6 October. The recovered remains will then be transferred to forensic laboratories in Baghdad for DNA testing and identification.

The work forms part of the wider effort to investigate mass graves created during the Ezidi Genocide of 2014. Figures presented at a conference in Shingal in July recorded 96 mass graves and 111 individual burial sites. According to those figures, 77 mass graves had been opened and 19 remained unopened. A total of 857 victims’ remains had reportedly been recovered, of which 296 had been identified while 561 were still awaiting identification.

Each identification can provide a family with confirmation of a relative’s fate and allow the victim to be buried under their own name. The reopening of the site beside the Sharfadin Shrine addresses one part of that unfinished process, while hundreds of recovered remains and numerous unopened graves continue to await investigation.