Bodies May Be From 1980s War

A warehouse in southern Iraq found to contain hundreds of bodies appears to be a repatriation facility for the remains of soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, military investigators said Sunday.

British troops discovered two tin structures full of bodies and coffins Saturday on Zubayr’s northern outskirts, sparking speculation that the site was a torture and execution ground and mass morgue, possibly for opponents of President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

But forensics experts and criminal investigators said Sunday that injuries on corpses examined so far appear to be war-related.

“There is a canvass going on right now of the local population to see what they know about this facility,” said Chief Warrant Officer Dan Walters, a senior criminal investigator for the U.S. Army’s 75th Exploitation Task Force.

The tin buildings are in a desolate area near an oil refinery. One of the warehouses contained a series of small, cell-like rooms partitioned by cinderblocks. In the other, empty coffins were neatly stacked five or six high. Some lay in a single row, with woven sacks and personal effects inside.

Investigators counted 408 sets of human remains and 664 caskets. Using documents at the site, investigators determined that about 85% of the corpses are Iraqi and the rest Iranian, Walters said. Documents at the site contained biographical information about the bodies, including their names, ranks and what country they were from.

In Tehran, Brig. Gen. Mirfeisal Baqerzadeh, head of an Iranian committee carrying out a search of its war missing, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to “immediately take the bodies from the invading forces and hand them over to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed in the 1980-88 war. Iran and Iraq have exchanged thousands of prisoners and dead soldiers’ remains.