The 38 Indians captured and killed by the Islamic State group in northern Iraq were handed over to Indian authorities in Baghdad and will be arrive home later Sunday.
Ambassador Pradeep Singh Rajpurohit said the bodies had been taken to Baghdad International Airport and would be flown back on a military flight, arriving in India on Monday.
IS abducted and killed the workers shortly after seizing the northern city of Mosul in the summer of 2014. Iraqi authorities intercepted the remains in a mass grave last year after retaking Mosul, and identified the bodies last month, confirmed the death of abducted Indians. The militants captured 40 but escaped one of them, while the presumed remains of another have yet to be positively identified and authorities are waiting for DNA samples from a first-degree relative.
IS swept across northern and central Iraq in 2014, eventually seizing a third of the country. Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition eventually push the militants from all the territory under their control in a grueling three-year campaign. The militants are still carrying out insurgent-style attacks all over.
Dozens of mass graves have been intercepted in areas held by the extremist group, which boasted about massacring its enemies and posted videos and photos of many of the mass killings online. Iraq has only managed to excavate a few of the sites due to a lack of funding and specialized staff.
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