Iraq-Iran war victims’ remains to be exchanged today

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Remains of the 1980s Iraq-Iran war victims will be exchanged today between the governments of Baghdad and Tehran. The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights will sponsor the ceremonies to bury the remains of 200 Iraqis after being received from the Iranian side and hand them over to the Martyrs Center in al-Zubeir area, Basra province. Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s official spokesman, had said last week that Sunday would see Iraq and Iran exchanging the remains of 200 Iraqi soldiers and 41 Iranian soldiers at the border point of al-Shalamja. “Out of the 200 Iraqi bodies, there are only 24 identified martyrs that would be handed over to their families to bury them,” said Dabbagh, adding the necessary measures to identify the others will be taken. The two neighboring countries were in a ferocious state of war for eight years – from September 1980 to August 1988. The war, considered the longest conventional during the 20th century, had left about one million persons killed and losses estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. AmR (P)/SR 1