Iraqi workers have completed the first of many exhumations of mass graves of Yazidis killed by the Islamic State in 2014.

The process began March 15 under the supervision of the Iraqi cabinet, the Ministry of Health and the government-affiliated Martyrs Foundation in cooperation with the United Nations and its investigative team. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad was also in attendance. Now a human rights activist, Murad was held capitve by IS as a slave for three months before she was able to escape.

This first grave, located in the village of Kocho in western Mosul's Sinjar district, held the remains of hundreds of Yazidis. The atrocities IS carried out against the Yazidis in northern Iraq were concentrated in Kocho, dubbed the Mother of Massacres by its residents. Around 400 people were killed in Kocho and more than 750 women and children were kidnapped after IS took control of Sinjar, the largest Yazidi area in the north.

The long-persecuted Yazidi religion first emerged in Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago. A third of its estimated 1.5 million followers live in Iraq. It is considered one of the oldest religions in the world.