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Kuwait receives 'remains of missing citizens' from Iraq

August 9, 2019 at 12:35 am

Damaged Iraqi battle tanks can be seen near the Kuwaiti border during the First Gulf War [SSgt. Reeve, US Army/Wikipedia]

Kuwait yesterday announced that it had received the remains of its citizens who went missing in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s regime invaded the Gulf country.

State official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), reported that the citizens were handed over through Iraq’s Abdali border crossing at a ceremony attended by officials from the two neighbouring countries.

In July, Iraqi foreign ministry said it had identified the remains of 32 Kuwaiti prisoners who were found months ago in a mass grave in Iraq’s southern province of Samawa.

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“In cooperation with the Red Cross organisation, the Iraqi authorities were able to find a mass grave in the province of Al-Muthanna in March,” the ministry pointed out, adding that the cemetery was containing 46 dead people.”

The preliminary results revealed that 32 of the dead people were Kuwaitis.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, but the United States later intervened, forcing Iraqi troops to retreat. In February, Iraq announced that Kuwait had received about 300 remains of its prisoners executed by the Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1990s.

Iraq and Kuwait resumed diplomatic relations after former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in 2003 in the US-led invasion of Iraq. He was executed three years later after he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity.