Iraqi and Iranian soldiers carry coffins draped in national flags during the exchange of war remains at the Shalamcheh border crossing in Basra Governorate. (Photo by 964media)
Iraq and Iran exchange remains of soldiers from 1980s war at Shalamcheh border
BASRA — Iraq and Iran exchanged the remains of soldiers killed during the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War in a ceremony held Sunday at the Shalamcheh border crossing, part of a long-running effort to recover and repatriate those who died in the conflict.
The ceremony took place at a designated exchange point on the Iraqi side of the border. Iraqi soldiers carried the coffins of their fallen comrades while Iranian honor guards received the remains of Iranian soldiers prepared by their consulate in Basra.
Nashat Al-Maliki, head of the remains exchange file at Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, told 964media that “48 remains were handed over to the Iranian side, while Iraq received seven identified remains and 63 unidentified remains.” He said the unidentified remains “will be examined and evaluated by the Forensic Medicine Department in Baghdad, followed by DNA testing.”
Al-Maliki added that search operations “have been ongoing for years and will continue until the last Iranian remains are handed over and the last Iraqi soldier’s remains are recovered from the First Gulf War.”
Iran’s Consul General in Basra, Ali Abadi, said he received “the remains of the martyrs of the Islamic Republic from the war imposed by the Baath Party on Iran,” noting that the remains “had spent years buried on Iraqi soil.”
He added that “through the efforts of the martyr identification team, these bodies are being returned today to the Islamic Republic,” estimating “more than 46 Iranian martyrs and over 70 remains in total exchanged between both sides.”
Mohammed Khurskof, representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in southern Iraq, said the number of missing soldiers from both sides “remains undisclosed,” explaining that “this information is shared only between the authorities of the two countries.” He said the committee recognizes the process as “a difficult and ongoing effort that must continue to ensure the completion of all remains exchanges.”
In January, Iraq and Iran exchanged the remains of soldiers killed in the 1980s Iran-Iraq War at the Shalamcheh border in Basra Governorate. Iraq handed over 41 Iranian remains and received 21 Iraqi remains in return. Supervised by the Red Cross, it was the 81st exchange since the process began to recover missing soldiers from both sides.
The Iran-Iraq War erupted after Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime confronted the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran. The conflict claimed more than one million lives and inflicted catastrophic economic and human losses on both sides.
