Forensic teams in Tikrit have begun exhuming bodies found in mass graves believed to contain the bodies of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State militants.
The extremists captured about 1,700 soldiers in June 2014 as they tried to flee Camp Speicher , a former U.S. Army base on the outskirts of the city, Saddam Hussein 's hometown.
Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, told The Associated Press that government teams on Monday started evacuating eight locations in the complex where much of the killing believed to have taken place.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, posted photos and videos of soldiers being executed on social media after seizing Tikrit last summer in an advance across the north and west of the country.
Amin told the AP that at least 12 bodies were exhumed on Monday, and that lab tests will take place to match them with DNA samples taken from around 85% of the victims' families.
"The work is continuing and we expect to discover more mass graves in different areas," he said. "We expect huge number of bodies to be unearthed."
Iraq last week declared a "magnificent victory" over ISIL in Tikrit by Iraqi forces and allied Shiite militias, helped by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
The battle for Tikrit is seen as a key step toward driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq 's second-largest city
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