Iran and Iraq
In October 2008, Iran, Iraq and the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) signed a
comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding to
investigate the fate of the hundreds of thousands
of cases of disappeared and missing persons from
the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. In that context,
EAAF was invited by the ICRC to provide a forensic
training course in Tehran in November 2008 and in
Baghdad in March 2009.
Background
Iran-Iraq War
I
n 1980, Iraq attacked Iran over
border disputes and as part of its
effort to attain regional dominance.1
According to the International Crisis
Group, during the following eight years,
an estimated 800,000 to 1 million
soldiers and civilians were killed in the
war.2 The war between Iraq and Iran
lasted from September 22, 1980 to
August 20, 1988. Tens of thousands
more were wounded and thousands are
still unaccounted for, with Iran reporting
8,000 missing.3 Given the continuing
conflicts in Iraq after the end of the IranIraq War, it has been difficult to estimate
figures precisely. Currently, the Iraqi
Ministry of Human Rights estimates that
between 375,000 and one million Iraqi
individuals have gone missing from 1980
to 2003, thus including missing persons
after the Iran-Iraq War.4
Before the start of the war, in Iran,
Ayatollah Khomeini had recently
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taken power after the removal of
the Iranian Shah, and a subsequent
power struggle between religious and
secular opposition factions.5 Islamists
loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini eventually
consolidated power, and in April
1979 Iran became an Islamic republic.
Khomeini, a Shia Islamist and strong
critic of both the West and secular Arab
leaders, assumed the title of Supreme
Leader (Head of State). Human rights
violations were alleged under Khomeini,
with censorship, torture, extrajudicial
executions, and detentions without
trials, among others.6
Iraq had been a secular republic since
1958, when the Hashemite monarchy
was overthrown by a secular military
coup d’etat. The government was run
by a series of autocratic Ba’athist party
leaders, and in July 1979, Saddam
Hussein, who had been an influential
deputy leader, formally took power
from the elder Ahmad Hassan alBakr. He subsequently led a purge of
Khanaqin, Iraq, 1990. Iranian prisoners
of war being repatriated by the
International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC). Photo: © ICRC/Thierry Gassmann.
the Ba’athist party leadership, during
which hundreds of party officials were
extrajudicially executed.7 Hussein also
allegedly oversaw disappearances,
political imprisonment without trial,
and torture.8
IRAN & IRAQ
According to MERIP (Middle East
Research and Information Project), an
independent not-for-profit research
institute, Hussein, fearing the effect
of the newly created Shia religious
government on the Shia population in
Iraq (the Ba’ath party leadership was
from the minority Sunni population), and
following a history of border disputes,
took advantage of Iran’s weakness
during the post-Shah transition and
invaded the country.9 Despite several
calls for ceasefire by the United Nation
Security Council, the war went on for
close to eight years, resulting in a huge
loss of life and immense economic
costs on both sides and no change in
borders or any reparations. According
to the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), over ten thousand
families are still waiting to know the
fate of missing loved ones on both
sides. These include large numbers of
civilians, and also combatants who went
missing in action and persons once
held as prisoners of war (POWs) whose
eventual fate remains unknown.10
On October 16, 2008, following
efforts from both the Iranian and the
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Basra and Nasirya Governorate, Iraq, 2009. Exhumation of remains of people missing in connection with the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war
and 1990-1991 Gulf War. The ICRC was invited by Ministry of Human Rights to be present at the recovery of remains. An ICRC Forensic
Advisor is pictured in the foreground. Photo: © ICRC/s.n.
Iraqi governments in previous years,
the two governments, together with
the ICRC, signed a memorandum of
understanding to share information
about the missing and return remains
if found. The document represents an
important step in the search for people
unaccounted for twenty years after the
end of the war and “establishes a clear
framework for collecting information
[about missing persons] and sharing
it between the two countries, and for
handing over mortal remains. These
tasks will be performed jointly by
experts from both countries with ICRC
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support.”11 In November 2008, in the
presence of ICRC delegates, remains
of approximately 250 Iraqi and Iranian
soldiers were exchanged near Basra and
were handed over to the responsible
authorities on each side. Before 2008,
the two countries have sporadically
exchanged across the border remains of
disappeared or missing persons related
to the war, but not in a systematic,
comprehensive manner.
In Iran, various governmental and
non-governmental organizations work
together on the different aspects of the
recovery and identification process for
POWs whose fates remain unknown or
soldiers that went missing in action.12
Their efforts are coordinated by the
Commission of Prisoners of War and
the Disappeared, headed by the Joint
Staff of the Army. In Iraq, the Ministry
of Human Rights has overseen the
search for missing or disappeared
persons, with the assistance of the
ICRC and forensic experts from the
country’s Medico-Legal Institute.13
In addition to the great number of
victims, the search for remains of missing
IRAN & IRAQ
persons from the Iran-Iraq war has been
complicated by several technical factors:
many graves are in places that are
strewn with land mines, causing injuries
and even death among members of
the search committee or team. Also,
because many of the remains have been
exposed on the ground surface for many
years, they are not well preserved. The
DNA is highly degraded, which makes it
difficult to conduct genetic analysis of
the remains.14
EAAF Participation15
The ICRC invited an EAAF member16
as a speaker and external consultant
to participate in a course on
“Advances on Identification of Human
Remains: Forensic Anthropology and
Archaeology”. Taking place from
November 9 to 11, 2008 in Tehran,
the training was arranged at the
request of Iranian authorities and
was jointly organized by the ICRC
and the governmental Legal Medical
Organization (LMO), Tehran. The
training was attended by local medical
personnel, geneticists and members of
LMO, and the governmental Kawsar
Research Center for Missing Martyrs and
governmental Committee for Search
and Recovery of Mortal Remains.
The course focused on capacity
building in the areas of forensic
anthropology and genetics. The
three-day course was held within the
framework of ICRC’s humanitarian
work to support ongoing efforts
to shed light on the fate of persons
disappeared during the Iran-Iraq war.
The application of forensic sciences is
fundamental to those efforts.
An EAAF member also took part as
a speaker and external consultant for
a training program held in Baghdad
in March 2009. The program was
designed for public officials from the
17
Ministry of Human Rights, which is the
agency that is overseeing efforts to
investigate these cases, and associated
forensic experts at the Medico-Legal
Institute. Based on the interest of
participants, the course was geared
towards the identification of remains
as a major challenge, especially after
the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, or the
combat since 2003.
A practical course with representatives
from both countries has also been
planned, but no date has yet been
set. Both countries though have
expressed interest in coordinating the
identification and return of remains
from the Iran-Iraq War.
At the end of the training workshops,
participants expressed strong interest
in receiving support and further
training, and recognized the need to
standardize practices and establish
protocols for forensic work. m
Endnotes
1. Stork, Joe. 1981. Iraq and the War in the Gulf. MERIP Reports 97.
2. International Crisis Group. Conflict History: Iran. Other reports range from ‘at least half a million people died, and upper estimates stretch to 1.5 million,” From BBC News. 2005.
“The Iran-Iraq War: 25 Years on.” September 22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4260420.stm. See also “Iran-Iraq War” by Jonathan C. Randal at Crimes of War Project.
http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/book.html
3. BBC News. 2008. Iran and Iraq in war missing deal. October 16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7674653.stm
4. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 2008. Twenty Years After the End of the Iran-Iraq War, Tens of Thousands of Combatants Still Unaccounted For.
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/iran-iraq-missing-161008?opendocument.
5. Ibid.
6. Paul, James and Joe Stork. 1987. The Middle East and Human Rights. MERIP Middle East Reports 149: 2-5.
7. Stork, Joe. 1981. Iraq and the War in the Gulf. MERIP Reports 97, pg. 12.
8. Paul, James and Joe Stork. 1987. The Middle East and Human Rights. MERIP Middle East Reports 149: 5.
9. Ibid. pg. 3, 6
10. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 2008. Twenty Years After the End of the Iran-Iraq War, Tens of Thousands of Combatants Still Unaccounted For.
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/iran-iraq-missing-161008?opendocument.
11. Ibid.
12. For a list of some of these organizations, please see the attendees to the training course in the EAAF Participation section.
13. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 2008. Twenty Years After the End of the Iran-Iraq War, Tens of Thousands of Combatants Still Unaccounted For.
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/iran-iraq-missing-161008?opendocument.
14. According to the Committee for Search and Recovery of Mortal Remains, Iran.
15. The Mission was supported by the Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
16. EAAF member Mercedes Salado-Puerto.
17. EAAF member Mercedes Salado-Puerto.
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