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A statement from the Iraqi Defense Ministry on the discovery of the remains of citizens killed during the Iran-Iraq war sparked discontent from Iraqi activists on social media.

Iraqi tweeters continue to circulate the hashtag “# the remains of the Iraqi army martyrs” in response to a statement from the Defense Ministry issued last Wednesday.

The ministry said in its statement, posted on its Twitter account, that during “joint searches” it was able to find the remains of 147 Iraqis “who died during the Iran-Iraq war.”

He added that Baghdad’s forensic medicine department carried out a “DNA test to ensure their identity.”

The ministry added to its statement the names of the Iraqis it encountered, their locations and ways to identify them. However, it did not clarify the nature of the “joint search” or whether all the remains belonged to members of the Iraqi army, or whether some of them were civilians.

But tweeters objected to the ministry’s use of the word “perished” rather than “martyred” in the eight-year war that left about a million dead.

This statement comes a week after the visit of the Iraqi Defense Minister Jumah Inad al-Jubouri, the monument to the martyrs in Tehran.

Twitter users released images of this visit, condemning it at a time when Iran did not do the same, despite frequent visits by its officials to Baghdad.

User Ahmed Al-Badri said: “The Defense Ministry is afraid to write that they have been killed by Iranian militias,” while Ahmad Safi said: “This is a non-Iraqi Defense Ministry.”

As for Naji Assal, he said: “The Defense Ministry writes that they have died and not (they were martyred). They defended the homeland during 8 years of wars and were martyred.

The director of the Nahrain Foundation to Support Transparency and Integrity, Muhammad Rahim, believes that the fact that the Defense Ministry did not describe the Iraqi army soldiers “who were martyred in the eight-year war as martyrs provokes feelings. of the Iraqis, but it is not the only act of provocation. “

He continued in an interview with Al-Hurra: “We saw the Defense Minister laying a wreath at the monument to the Iranian martyr in Iran, while we did not see any Iranian official who had visited the monument to the martyr in Iraq.”

“Everybody wants to satisfy Iran and get closer to it with these actions, at a time when Iran is not paying attention to the feelings of Iraqis,” he added.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, out of concern over the attempt by clerics who came to power in Tehran in 1979 to reproduce their Islamic revolution in Iraq.