Bodies of 60 Iranian Martyrs Repatriated from Iraq
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Remains of 60 Iranian troops unearthed in Iraq more than three decades after the end of an imposed war on Iran in the 1980s were repatriated from the Arab country on Wednesday.
In a ceremony at Khosravi border crossing west of Iran, 60 caskets draped in the Iranian flag were handed over to Iranian officials and then transferred to the city of Qasr-e-Shirin.
A number of Iranian and Iraqi officials took part in the ceremony, during which the bodies of 80 Iraqi soldiers found in former battlefields were also handed over to Iraq.
The newly-unearthed bodies have been found in Iraq’s province of Diyala by the missing in action (MIA) search committee of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff.
These Iranian soldiers were martyred in military operations Muslim ibn Aqeel (October 1982) and Karbala-6 (January 1987), and in an Iraqi offense in April 1986.
Iraq, under former dictator Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, imposing an eight-year war on its eastern neighbor.