Iraqi Yazidis hold burial ceremony for more than 100 killed in 2014 Islamic State massacre

Mourners carrying coffins wrapped in the Iraqi flag in a procession 

Credit: ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP via Getty Images

The remains of more than 100 Yazidis massacred by the Islamic State were buried in the northern Iraqi village of Kocho on Saturday, six years after the terror group launched its deadly assault on the area.

The bodies were exhumed from 16 mass graves last year by UNITAD, the UN team investigating Isis war crimes.

With the help of Iraq’s Martyrs’ Foundation, 104 of the bodies were identified using DNA samples from surviving relatives.

The coffins carrying the men were individually placed on tables in Kocho’s village square by Iraqi soldiers on Saturday as families gathered around.

The cries of relatives at the scene can be heard in videos posted on social media.

The remains of more than 100 Yazidi victims of the Islamic State group have been returned for burial in Kojo

Credit: ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP via Getty Images

Each coffin was adorned with a photo of the victim and draped with an Iraqi flag, ready for the families to carry their loved ones away for a dignified burial.

"This is a first step in respecting the remains of these victims and it will be also a step of transitional justice that the other victims, the women, the children, who survived the genocide will be compensated," Yazidi human rights activist Mirza Dinnayi told the BBC.

UNITAD believes there are another 57 mass graves still to be exhumed, with thousands of Yazidi bodies scattered in them.

When Isis swept through northern Iraq between 2014 and 2017, it committed what the UN has described as a genocide against the Yazidi minority, whose religion is considered heretical by the extremist group.

The burial comes six years after the IS group swept through northern Iraq

Credit: ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP via Getty Images

The community’s women were raped, abducted and enslaved, while the men were slaughtered. Sinjar province, which was widely known as the homeland of the Yazidis, is still largely empty with the UN estimating that up to 200,000 members of the community remain displaced, too scared to return home.

The majority live in camps in Iraq, where there has been a spike in deaths from suicide this year.

In addition to genocide and the destruction of religious sites, the UN estimates that IS destroyed 80 per cent of public infrastructure and 70 per cent of civilian homes in Sinjar City and surrounding areas.

Caught in the middle of a dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in the north, rebuilding life in the Yazidis’ hometown has been slow.