Under the punishing heat of an Iraqi August, a group of officials, forensic experts, and grieving families gathered at the edge of a gaping sinkhole south of Mosul. Known locally as al-Khafsa, this natural pit has long been shrouded in horror and rumor, whispered about as one of the Islamic State’s most notorious killing grounds. Now, for the first time, Iraqi authorities have begun the painstaking work of excavation—hoping to finally bring answers to families who have waited nearly a decade for news of their missing loved ones.
The operation at al-Khafsa began in earnest on August 9, 2025, at the request of Nineveh province’s Governor Abdulqadir al-Dakhil, according to the state-run Iraqi News Agency and reporting by the Associated Press. Teams from Iraq’s Martyrs’ Foundation, the judiciary, forensic investigators, and the directorate of mass graves converged on the site, initially focusing on gathering visible human remains and surface evidence. The full exhumation, officials say, will require significant international support and expertise—a daunting prospect given the site’s complexity and hazards.
Judge Mohammed Salahuddin al-Badrani, head of the Nineveh Mass Graves Committee, described the excavation as a “humanitarian mission” that demands cooperation from international and regional organizations, as well as civil society groups. “What has been found around the site and at its entrances is horrifying, let alone what may emerge from its depths,” he told Shafaq News. Al-Badrani warned that without substantial outside support, the process could drag on for more than two years.
Al-Khafsa, located roughly 20 kilometers south of Mosul, was transformed into a mass execution site during the Islamic State’s reign from 2014 to 2017. Witnesses and unofficial testimonies suggest that thousands of people—perhaps as many as 4,000 or more—were thrown into the pit. The victims included Iraqi army and police personnel, Yazidis from Sinjar, and Shiite civilians from Tal Afar, among others. Many were reportedly brought by bus, executed, and then discarded into the abyss. “Many of them were decapitated,” said lawyer Rabah Nouri Attiyah, who has worked on more than 70 cases of missing people in Nineveh. Attiyah’s own uncle and cousin, both police officers, were among those believed to have perished at the site. “Information I obtained from the foundation and different Iraqi courts during my investigations points to Khasfa as the largest mass grave in modern Iraqi history,” he told the AP.
Despite these chilling estimates, Ahmad Qusay al-Asady, head of the Martyrs’ Foundation’s mass graves excavation department, cautioned that investigators “cannot confirm yet if it is the largest mass grave” in Iraq. “But according to the size of the space, we estimate it to be one of the largest,” he said. The initial phase of work, limited to 15 days, will focus on collecting surface evidence and building a database. Afterward, the teams plan to start collecting DNA samples from families of suspected victims—a crucial step, given the scale of the tragedy and the need for proper identification. Al-Asady emphasized that laboratory processing and a comprehensive DNA database must come first. Only once specialized assistance is secured, he said, can full exhumations proceed. The site is fraught with dangers, including sulfur water and unexploded ordnance, making the work both hazardous and technically challenging.
The need for international help is urgent. On August 17, 2025, as excavation efforts intensified, the Nineveh Mass Graves Committee issued a public appeal for global assistance. Without it, officials warn, reaching the deepest layers of the pit—and the remains within—may prove impossible. “This effort could take more than two years without substantial outside support,” Judge al-Badrani reiterated to Shafaq News. The excavation is not only about recovering bodies, but about delivering justice and closure to families who have lived in limbo since the fall of Mosul.
The pain of that uncertainty was palpable in Mosul’s Wadi Hajar district on August 19, 2025, when dozens of families staged a protest demanding answers about the fate of more than 600 men who vanished during ISIS’s occupation. Many of the missing were policemen and civilians who never returned after the city’s liberation. Their families, clutching faded photographs and fragments of hope, pleaded for information—any information—about their loved ones. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that between 250,000 and 1 million people remain missing in Iraq as a result of conflict, human rights violations, and atrocities, including those perpetrated by ISIS.
At its peak, the Islamic State ruled an area in Iraq and Syria roughly half the size of the United Kingdom. The group became infamous for its brutality: beheading civilians, enslaving and raping thousands of Yazidi women, and carrying out mass killings of security forces and minority communities. The tide began to turn in July 2017, when Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul after months of fierce fighting. Just three months later, Kurdish forces seized Raqqa, ISIS’s de facto capital in Syria. By March 2019, the group’s last foothold—Baghouz in eastern Syria—fell to US-backed and Kurdish-led fighters, officially ending the territorial war against ISIS. Yet the legacy of those years—marked by trauma, mass graves, and unanswered questions—remains painfully present.
Excavation efforts at al-Khafsa are emblematic of Iraq’s broader struggle to reckon with the aftermath of ISIS’s reign. Scores of mass graves containing thousands of bodies have been found across Iraq and Syria, each one a grim testament to the group’s campaign of terror. The work at al-Khafsa is especially fraught, not only because of its size and the hazards involved, but because of what it represents to the people of Mosul and Nineveh. For many, the site is a symbol of loss and unresolved grief—a place where the past refuses to stay buried.
Authorities say that about 70 percent of the remains at al-Khafsa are believed to be those of Iraqi army and police personnel, with the rest including Yazidis and Shiites. Testimonies and findings from other mass graves in Nineveh indicate that most of the military, police, and other security forces killed by ISIS are expected to be found here. The process of identification—painstaking and slow—will rely heavily on DNA analysis and the cooperation of families willing to provide samples. It is, officials acknowledge, an enormous undertaking.
Still, the work continues, driven by a sense of duty and the hope of closure. As the first meters of digging have already uncovered human remains, the scale of the tragedy is becoming clearer. “What has been found around the site and at its entrances is horrifying,” Judge al-Badrani said. The excavation at al-Khafsa is not just about unearthing the past—it is about giving names to the nameless, restoring dignity to the dead, and offering a measure of solace to the living. For the families of Mosul and beyond, that hope is reason enough to keep searching.
