carnage

There’s less than a week to go before the ‘mother of all reunions’ on EastEnders, as Kat and Zoe come face to face for the first time in two years – as they tease what’s to come

With just a week to go until the ‘mother of all reunions’, Jessie Wallace and Michelle Ryan joined The One Show live from Albert Square on Wednesday night, to give EastEnders fans a teaser of what they can expect.

Spoilers have revealed that Kat and Zoe will finally come face-to-face next week for the first time in two decades, months after Zoe made her brief return to Albert Square.

At the time, Alfie and Stacey were the only ones who had been in contact with her and had tried to do all that they could to keep the secret from Kat. However, the two couldn’t keep the secret for long as news got to both Tommy and Jean this week. Tonight, the guilt got too much for Alfie, as he confessed all…

READ MORE: EastEnders fans ‘convinced’ Cindy and Anthony will have scandalous affair after ‘clue’READ MORE: EastEnders horror as resident ‘fights for life’ after shock shooting on the Square

Kat was left stunned as the episode came to an end, and now the secret’s out, EastEnders fans only have to wait a few days until the highly anticipated reunion next week. The BBC soap aren’t giving too much away, but JB Gill managed to get some details out of Michelle and Jessie during his trip to Albert Square…

Revealing what viewers can expect from her major return next week, Michelle said: “Zoe is at the lowest point that we’ve ever known her to be. Disappeared 20 years ago, and we’re seeing that she’s struggled a lot. So, she’s desperate, she comes back, and even despite herself, she knows that she needs her family.

“And I think that’s where Kat is such a huge part. The mother-daughter dynamic is the best thing that you can play,” Michelle continued.

“But we still play it in a way as sisters, because we grew up as sisters,” Jessie added. “Well, the characters grew up as sisters, but there are elements of, ‘I am your mother!'” she laughed. “But that’s there, that’s sort of underlying.”

Digging for even more details, the JLS star asked the duo whether the reunion would be explosive, or pain sailing – but of course, we knew the answer.

“Oh come on! It’s EastEnders, what do you think?!” Jessie laughed. “Carnage. Complete carnage,” Michelle added.

As Jessie mentioned, Kat and Zoe grew up as ‘sisters’ until October 2001, where Kat accidentally revealed the truth during an argument, creating the iconic – “You’re not my mother!” line.

The pair have had a tumultuous relationship ever since – but with Zoe now heading back to Albert Square, can Kat have the mother daughter relationship with Zoe that she’s always wanted?

It’s not the only dramatic moment happening next week in the BBC soap, as one residents life is set to hang in the balance after a shock shooting. But who is it?

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The al-Khasfa site, near Iraq’s second-largest city, could contain 4,000 remains and possibly thousands more.

Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by ISIL (ISIS) during its years of carnage exacted upon the civilian population after it seized large swaths of the nation from 2014 onwards, until being vanquished three years later.

Local authorities were working alongside the judiciary, forensic investigators, the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation and the directorate of mass graves to carry out the excavation in al-Khafsa, south of the northern city of Mosul, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported on Sunday.

The site – a sinkhole about 150 metres (nearly 500 feet) deep and 110 metres (360 ft) wide – is believed to have been the grisly scene of some of the worst massacres committed by ISIL.

Ahmad Qusay al-Asady, head of the Martyrs Foundation’s mass graves excavation department, told The Associated Press news agency that his team began work on August 9 at the request of the Nineveh province.

The operation will initially be limited to gathering visible human remains and surface evidence, while preparing for a full exhumation that officials say will require international support, al-Asady said.

The foundation will then build a database and start collecting DNA samples from families of suspected victims.

Full exhumations can only proceed once specialised assistance is secured to navigate the site’s hazards, including sulfur water and unexploded ordnance. The water may have also eroded the human remains, complicating DNA identification.

Because of the presence of these elements, al-Khafsa is “a very complicated site,” al-Asady added.

Based on unverified accounts from witnesses and families and other unofficial testimonies, authorities estimate the site could contain at least 4,000 remains, with the possibility of thousands more.

Al-Khasfa is located near Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, where ISIL took control before being defeated in Iraq in late 2017. At its peak, ISIL ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, spanning across Iraq and Syria, with Raqqa in the latter being the capital of their self-declared “caliphate”.

The group was notorious for its brutality. The group carried out massacres of thousands of the Yazidi people and enslaved thousands of Yazidi women. The Yazidis, a long-persecuted group whose faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, are still recovering from the horrors of ISIL’s onslaught on their community in Iraq’s Sinjar district in 2014.

Rabah Nouri Attiyah, a lawyer who has worked on more than 70 cases of missing people in Nineveh, told the AP that information points to al-Khasfa being “the largest mass grave in modern Iraqi history”.

Al-Asady, however, said investigators have not yet been able to confirm its size.

About 70 percent of the estimated human remains there are believed to belong to Iraqi army and police personnel, as well as other victims, including Yazidis.

Interviews conducted with numerous witnesses from the area suggest ISIL fighters brought people there by bus to kill them. “Many of them were decapitated,” al-Asady said.

In addition to ISIL-era mass graves, Iraqi authorities continue to unearth such sites dating to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.