(By Estera Popowska)

Iraq health minister said Thursday that the remains of 470 people believed to have been executed by militants near Tikrit last year in what is known as the Speicher massacre, have been exhumed. 

The health official, Adila Hammoud said at a press conference in Baghdad  that "we have exhumed the bodies of 470 Speicher martyrs from burial sites in Tikrit." Hammoud was referring to the nearby military base that the massacre was named after.

AFP says in June 2014, armed men belonging or allied to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group abducted hundreds of young, mostly Shi'ite recruits from Speicher base, just outside the city of Tikrit.