Skeletal remains found at Sassanid-era site in central Iraq
The discovery occurred as excavation teams recovered ancient clay jars and pottery from the Nile subdistrict, north of Hilla, dating back to the Sassanid Empire (224–651 AD)—a significant pre-Islamic period in Mesopotamian history.
The skeletal remains were transferred to the Department of Forensic Medicine for further analysis to determine their age, origin, and cause of death.
While this find appears to be archaeological in nature, Iraq remains deeply scarred by decades of war, dictatorship, and insurgency, which have left behind some of the world's largest concentrations of mass graves.
According to the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation and UN reports, Iraq has more than 200 known mass grave sites, many of them dating back to the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein, particularly the 1988 Anfal campaign that targeted Kurdish civilians in the north, the 1991 suppression of Shia uprisings in the south, and the brutal crackdowns on political dissidents throughout the 1980s.
After 2003, Iraq witnessed a new wave of mass killings at the hands of al-Qaeda and ISIS, especially in areas like Sinjar, where thousands of Yazidis were massacred, and Camp Speicher, where ISIS executed over 1,700 Iraqi cadets.
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