BAGHDAD, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi authorities announced on Sunday that they unearthed 123 bodies from two mass graves in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.

"The remains near Badush Prison are possibly of the prison's security personnel," Nineveh's Governor Najm al-Jubouri said in a joint press conference at the site of the mass graves near the prison, northwest of the provincial capital Mosul, about 400 km north of Baghdad.

"Dozens of mass graves have been documented and are waiting to be opened, including the al-Khasfa sinkhole south of Mosul, which is the largest site about a hundred meters deep," al-Jubouri said.

Al-Jubouri also called on the United Nations and other international organizations to help Iraq uncover dozens of mass graves in the province.

Dhia Kareem, head of Iraqi Martyrs Foundation, told the press conference that most of the remains belong to victims who were killed by the Islamic State (IS) militants during their control over Mosul between 2014 and 2017.

"The graves of Badush Prison are large, with more than 123 bodies out of 500 having been exhumed so far, and the national team is unable to open and identify mass graves in Iraq alone without the assistance of international expertise," Kareem said.

In July 2017, Iraq formally declared that Mosul, the country's second-largest city, was liberated from IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.

A large part of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh came under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to control parts of Iraq's northern and western regions. Enditem

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