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

In June 2014, armed men belonging or allied to the ISIS abducted hundreds of young, mostly Shi’a recruits from Speicher base, just outside the city of Tikrit.

They were then lined up in several locations and executed one by one, as shown in pictures and footage that has emerged since.

Some were pushed into the Tigris river, others hastily buried in locations that were discovered when government and allied forces retook Tikrit from the jihadists about two months ago.

The highest estimate for the number of people killed in one of the worst atrocities ever committed by ISIS stands at 1,700.

Hundreds of families whose sons, fathers and brothers went missing at the time of the ISIS-led offensive in Iraq have been waiting for confirmation that their loved ones were among the Speicher victims.

Officials at Thursday’s press conference said the first list of names would be released next week.