ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The remains of 25 Yazidi victims of the 2014 Islamic State’s (ISIS) massacre in Sinjar were returned to the Yazidi heartland on Thursday following the completion of DNA testing and identification procedures.

“Today, the remains of 25 deceased martyrs from the Yazidi community were received,” Hamad Ismail, head of Mosul’s forensic medicine, told The New Region, adding that the unmarked burial sites were identified by the victims’ families and people from Sinjar.

Following the identification of the site, the Nineveh forensic medicine department then completed the procedures for exhuming the graves. The remains were then sent to the forensic medicine department in Baghdad for DNA testing, according to Ismail.

He added that the remains will be handed over to their families following administrative procedures.

The remains were taken to the Yazidi Genocide Memorial in Sinjar for an official ceremony attended by the victims’ families, local residents, and the media, before being handed over to the families for burial.

The bodies constituted the ninth batch of the remains belonging to the minority group, Director of the Human Rights United Organization in Nineveh Sami al-Faisal told The New Region, adding that “there are tens of thousands of bodies” remaining in the mass graves.

“We have approximately 96 mass graves,” Faisal said, stressing that tens of thousands of families of the missing individuals are awaiting “a glimmer of hope to reveal the remains of their martyrs.”

Hundreds of other sets of remains are still awaiting DNA testing and identification, according to information obtained by The New Region.

Mahma Khalil, a Yazidi lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament, called on Baghdad to “exert every effort to recover these remains and compensate the families,” in remarks to The New Region.

ISIS swept through the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar in 2014, launching a brutal campaign of killings, abductions, genocidal rape, and forced conversions of Yazidis.

Over 5,000 Yazidis were killed in the ISIS campaign, and some 6,000 others were abducted and sold into sexual slavery. Thousands 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.”