Camp Speicher massacre: mass graves excavated in Iraqi city of Tikrit

Mass graves thought to hold the bodies of up to 1,700 Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State (IS) militants have been discovered in the newly liberated city of Tikrit.

Forensic teams have been excavating 12 grave sites near the former US Army base, Camp Speicher. A small ceremony was held on the hillside to honour the fallen soldiers, with soldiers firing rounds of gunfire into the air as the national anthem played, CNN reports.

"We dug up the first mass grave site today,” Khalid al-Atbi, an Iraqi health official working with the forensic team, told Reuters. “Until now, we found at least 20 bodies. Initial indications show indisputably that they were from the Speicher victims.

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"It was a heartbreaking scene. We couldn't prevent ourselves from breaking down in tears. What savage barbarian could kill 1,700 persons in cold blood?"

The Camp Speicher massacre took place in June last year, when IS militants led hundreds of unarmed Iraqi soldiers off the army base and executed them. Survivors say the militants questioned the victims to identify those who were Shia Muslims, before murdering them. Gruesome video and images of the attacks were later posted online.

“The massacre of the Iraqi army detachment at Camp Speicher was unprecedented even by the standards of Iraq's decade of sectarian war,” says Reuters. Families of the victims have laid blame on the government and local tribes, who they accuse of promising the soldiers safe passage, but then allowing them to be led to their deaths.

The remains from the mass graves will be sent for DNA testing, but officials warn it could take months for all of the bodies to be uncovered and identified.

“The murder of the soldiers has become a lightning rod for Shia militias who have vowed to avenge the killings,” reports the BBC. The militias have helped Iraqi forces push back IS advances, but have themselves been accused of war crimes.

Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militias recaptured Tikrit from IS militants last week after a month of fierce fighting, representing a significant victory for the Iraqi government.

The army is now preparing to retake Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city and IS stronghold. The operation is reported to involve 25,000 Iraqi forces and will be backed by US-led coalition air strikes.