News-Info-Alerts

Re: Long-Term Iraqi POWs Return Home from Iran

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: May 06, 2003

"Tuesday, May 06, 2003

ICRC brings back 59 Iraqi POWs, believed to be last

Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

BAGHDAD, May 5 (AFP) - Fifty-nine more Iraqis held prisoner in Iran since the war between the two neighbours ended 15 years ago returned home on Monday, the International Commitee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said here.

The ICRC said it had negotiated their release with the Iranian government and flown them into Baghdad.

"The Iranians say these are the last group of Iraqi POWs in Iran," said Nada Doumani, ICRC spokesperson in Baghdad. "We have no reason not to believe them."

She said some in the group had been captured in the early years of the 1980-1988 war launched by Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad against Iran.

Many were unknown to the ICRC until the past couple of weeks, she said.

"They have written messages to their families in the past two weeks. We will help them try to find their families," she told AFP. "Some of them are quite sick."

Iran and Iraq exchanged more than 1,200 prisoners in the immediate run up to the US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein launched on March 20.

On March 19, the head of the Iranian armed forces POW committee, Abdollah Najafi, told the official IRNA news agency that Tehran would release the remaining 350 POWs within a month.

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