BODIES FOUND IN BASRA ARE IRANIANS
TEHRAN 6 Apr. (IPS) An Iranian in charge of the Missing in Action (MIA) said on Sunday that the bodies the British said have found near Basra are those of Iranian soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War.
Confirming the Iranians, an Iraqi official said some of the 200 bodies are Iraqi soldiers that were supposed to be hand over to their families, but the outbreak of the present war stopped the operations.
The bodies were discovered Saturday by the British in a military complex near Basra and at first, it was thought that they were Iraqi opponents slaughtered by Saddam’s militia.
Army General Mirfeysal Baqerzadeh told the radical daily "Jomhoori Eslami that the bodies were Iranian soldiers killed during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and should have been repatriated to Iran, but because of Iraq's negligence, these corpses were not returned to Iran in time".
The general, who is responsible for Iran's Committee for Searching for the Missing in Action said the corpses had been unearthed in recent months by joint Iran-Iraq search teams.
He said he has proposed to UN agencies ways and means to return the remains to Iran "as soon as possible"
Although the Iran-Iraq war, in which more than a million people were killed and more than six millions wounded and disabled on both sides, ended 15 years ago, the two countries still exchange bodies and POWs, with the latest prisoner swap ending last month, a day before the start of the current war. ENDS CORPSES 6403