Iraq, Iran exchange remains of 61 soldiers killed in 1980s war

Mustafa Shilani 2021/12/15 21:13

The remains of 61 soldiers who were killed in the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s. (Photo: ICRC)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that it had carried out an exchange with Iran this week of the remains of 61 soldiers who perished during the war between the two nations in the 1980s.

“The remains of four unidentified Iraqis found inside Iranian territory were handed over in exchange for the remains of 57 Iranian soldiers (33 of which were unidentified) that were discovered during joint search operations in the (Iraqi) provinces of Basra and Maysan,” read a ministry statement.

The exchange took place through the Shalamcheh border-crossing, located in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Iraq and Iran fought a deadly war that lasted for eight years (1980-1988) during the rule of the former Iraqi regime which resulted in the deaths of up to one million people on both sides, with economic losses estimated at about a trillion dollars.

A memorandum of understanding aimed at clarifying the fate of persons missing in connection with the 1980-1988 war was signed in 2008 in Geneva by the ICRC and the governments of Iraq and Iran.

Since then, the remains of several Iraqi and Iranian soldiers have been repatriated.

In October, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that it had participated in a handover of over 30 of them.

More than 30 years after the war, many Iraqi and Iranian families have still received no information about their relatives who were killed during the conflict.