An official funeral ceremony was held today in Baghdad's Celebration Square to bid farewell to the remains of 104 Yazidi genocide victims killed by the Islamic State (IS) in August 2014.

The remains were excavated from some of the more than 80 mass graves in Sinjar, of which only a few have been opened. DNA tests to identify the victims were conducted by the Iraqi Medico-Legal Department of the Martyrs Foundation, in cooperation with the International Commission on Missing Persons and the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL (IS). The coffins will be transported by air to Sinjar, where a burial ceremony will take place according to Yazidi rituals on Feb. 6 in the presence of a large throng of the public as well as social, religious and secular figures. Local and international institutions will provide psychological support to the victims‘ families throughout the memorial service, which spans seven days in accordance with Yazidi traditions.

Iraqi President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi attended the official ceremony in Baghdad, as did governmental and international figures, diplomats, activists, Iraqi citizens, and a number of the victims' families and their representatives. The remains will be moved to where the massacre occurred, namely Kocho village in Sinjar, where they will be buried in the presence of local and international officials and the media.

The majority of this first set of victims hailed from Kocho, whose entire male population was killed and whose women and children were captured. On Aug. 15, 2014, IS massacred more than 400 men and threw them in four mass graves around the village. The next day, they killed more than 80 elderly women and threw their bodies in what is now known as "the mothers’ grave," south of the city of Sinjar. Also, more than 1,000 women, girls and children were taken captive and sold in slave markets in Mosul, Raqqa and Tal Afar.