Dirk Adriaensens: Crimes Against Humanity, Iraq's Mass Graves

On 22 October 2012, Shafaq, an Iraqi News Agency, reports: An official security source revealed on Monday that a mass grave was found in Sada area on the outskirts of Sadr City, belonging to the staff of the Department of missions of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research who disappeared in 2006. A security force found 16 bodies buried in a mass grave in Sadr City in Baghdad belonging to the staff of the Department of Missions of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research who disappeared in 2006. A security force found 16 bodies buried in a mass grave in Sadr City in Baghdad, belonging to employees of the Department of Missions of the Ministry of Higher Education. The available intelligence reports that the bodies belong to employees of the Department of Missions of the Ministry of Higher Education. The available intelligence reports that the bodies belong to employees of the Department of Missions who were abducted in 2006 and buried in a mass grave. The competent authorities are conducting DNA tests on the bodies to make sure of their identities and inform their families. On Tuesday 14 November 2006, paramilitary gunmen in the uniforms of Iraqi National Police commandos raided a building belonging to the Ministry of Education in Baghdad's Karrada district, and arrested around 100 members of staff from two departments and around 50 visitors, according to lists compiled by the Minister of Education. The raid took place in broad daylight, 1km from the Green Zone, in an area that contained several high security compounds, including the department where passports are issued. According to a BBC correspondent, the Karrada area, occupying an isthmus in the River Tigris, is well protected with a heavy presence of Iraqi troops  and several checkpoints. The paramilitary force, estimated at between at least 50 and 100 arrived in a fleet of some 20-30 camouflage pickup trucks of the kind employed by the Interior Ministry, and rapidly established a cordon of the area.