KUWAIT CITY, April 5: British forces have found 200 coffins containing human remains stashed in bags at a former army barracks in southern Iraq, a British officer told newsmen on Saturday.

“We found approximately 200 coffins, each containing bags, each labelled, and each bag contained human remains,” said the officer on condition of anonymity.

The remains, which appeared to date back some years, were discovered by the Royal Logistics Corps at a recently-abandoned headquarters of the Iraqi army’s 51st division in the town of Al Zubayr.

The officer said that the bones appeared to be “quite old”.

“The entire area has been sealed off and is being treated as a mass grave,” the officer added.

A correspondent from Britain’s Press Association, who is embedded with the British army’s Royal Logistic Corps, told of cardboard coffins “stacked five deep in a warehouse” at the site.

A neighbouring building “contained apparent cells and catalogues of photographs of the dead, most of whom had died from gunshot wounds to the head.”

“Others were mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen in the faded black and white photographs,” she reported. “Outside stood what one soldier described as ‘a purpose-built shooting gallery’.”

“Human skulls, their teeth broken and missing, looked out from other bags, bundled into the coffins.” —AFP