Iraq and Iran swap remains of 111 soldiers killed in 1980-1988 war

An Iraqi official says Iraq and Iran have exchanged the bodies of 111 soldiers killed during the two countries’ 1980-1988 war.

Mahdi al-Tamimi, an official in Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry, says the remains of 98 Iranians and 13 Iraqis were returned to their native countries during a ceremony on Tuesday.

Al-Tamimi says the swap at a border checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra brings the number of Iraqi bodies received since 1996 to 2,262. Iranians have received 1,597 bodies of their fallen.

“The mortal remains of Iranian and Iraqi soldiers killed during the 1980-1988 war between the two countries were repatriated today at the Shalamja border crossing near Basra with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),” it said in a statement.

“This brings to 557 the number of people whose remains have been returned to their home countries with ICRC help since 2008,” the statement said.

More than 1 million people from both sides were killed or went missing during the eight-year war.