Archaeologists in Argentina are set to exhume the unidentified bodies of over 100 Argentine soldiers who were killed during the Falklands War.
The Argentine Group of Anthropological Forensics (AGAF) has been preparing for a year for their chance to dig up the 123 unidentified bodies buried on the Falkland Islands, and it seems now that the group will finally been given the green light to begin their work.
As part of their preparations, the group has contacted 78 families who have agreed to give blood samples, as well as provide information on the appearance of their loved ones, so that these details be placed into a database.
It is hoped that this information can then be used to help identify the dead soldiers.
Member of the AGAF, Luis Fondebrider, said that their preparations had taken painstaking efforts over the last year to obtain the information and they are now fully ready to exhume the bodies, take the samples back to Argentina for examination and attempt to match them up with the information they have already.
He said: “From the technical point of view, we are ready to launch the operation in the Falkland Islands when it is requested.”
He added: “We believe in eight weeks’ time, we can exhume the bodies, analyse them, take the samples and rebury them in the Darwin cemetery.”
The group has said that they must carry out the work before March 2015, as the weather after that period will make digging nearly impossible.
The 123 bodies make up nearly 20 per cent of the 649 Argentines that died during the war between the South American nation and the UK that took place between April and June 1982 – 258 British soldiers were killed.
Thursday 27 November 2014
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/archaeologists-to-exhume-the-bodies-of-over-100-unidentified-argentine-soldiers-on-falkland-islands-9880080.html
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