Shafaq News/ Iraq's Forensic Medicine Directorate said Monday it has completed preparations to return the remains of 172 Kurdish victims of the Anfal genocide to their hometowns in the Kurdistan region.

The remains were discovered in a mass grave in the desert of the southern governorate of al-Muthanna . They are believed to be the victims of a 1988 chemical weapons attack by the former Iraqi regime.

"We have completed all the necessary medical and laboratory tests to identify the remains," said Dr. Ziad Ali Abbas, director general of the Forensic Medicine Directorate. "We are now ready to hand them over to the Kurdistan Regional Government."

The remains include women and children, Abbas said. "They were all blindfolded and shot in the head," he said. "They also had bullet wounds in other parts of their bodies."

The Anfal genocide was a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by the former Iraqi regime against the Kurds in the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed, and many more were displaced.