The killings took place during ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive, when the cadets were captured outside of Camp Speicher during their attempt to flee from the area.

[3][4] At the time of the massacre, there were between 5,000 and 10,000 unarmed cadets in the vicinity of Camp Speicher,[5] and ISIL militants selected the Shia Muslims for execution.

[5][7] Hassan Khalil, one survivor, who managed to escape by pretending to be dead under another corpse and fleeing at night, said: "Our chief officers are the reason behind the killings.

[9] Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), stated: "The photos and satellite images from Tikrit provide strong evidence of a horrible war crime that needs further investigation.

[14] Although pictures showed that every armed man was from ISIS, the government stated "Without any doubts and suspicion, all of these criminals are from the banned Ba'ath Party.

[17] On the 2nd of September, more than 100 members of the families of the killed and missing cadets and soldiers broke into the Iraqi Parliament and hit three of the security guards.

[18] After a day, a session started in the parliament with the attendance of representatives of the families and Sa'dun al-Dulaimi, along with other military officials to discuss the massacre.

[23] Following the Iraqi forces' victory over ISIL in Tikrit in early April 2015, mass graves containing some of the murdered cadets were located and the decomposed corpses began to be exhumed.

[25] On 13 December 2016, the 24-year-old twins were charged with murder and committing a war crime for allegedly killing unarmed cadets, as well as "aggravated assault with terrorist aims".