ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The remains of 22 Yazidi victims of the Islamic State (ISIS) were handed back to their families in Sinjar, Iraq’s Ministry of Health said on Thursday.

The victims were killed during the reign of the terror group in Nineveh.

These were the eighth wave of remains returned to families, making a total of 297 cases of identified and returned remains, according to the ministry of health statement.

The handover was in the form of a private funeral ceremony in Sinjar in cooperation with the Nadia Murad Initiative and the International Commission on Missing Persons.

On August 3, 2014, ISIS militants seized control of the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar, launching a brutal campaign of killings, abductions, genocidal rape, and forced conversions of members of the ethno-religious minority group.

More than 5,000 Yazidis were killed in the ISIS campaign, and over 6,000 others, mostly women and children, were abducted and sold into sexual slavery. Thousands of abducted Yazidis still remain missing.

At least 18 countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Switzerland, have officially recognized ISIS' crimes against the Yazidi community as a genocide. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) described the recognition as a “significant milestone in the pursuit of justice and accountability for the crimes committed against the Yazidi community.”

According to Dindar Zebari, Coordinator for International Advocacy at the KRG, the Kurdish government has documented 42,000 files containing 408,540 pages of digital records detailing ISIS crimes.