Amara War Cemetery
The Amara War Cemetery is a First World War British military cemetery in Amara, now known as Amarah, southern Iraq, that is the responsibility of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). It contains more than 4,600 graves including three recipients of the Victoria Cross but is now in poor condition as the CWGC have not been able to work in Iraq since 1991. Location The cemetery is located immediately to the south of one of the branches of the River Tigris where it splits at Amarah in an area that was seized by the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Amarah became a major hospital centre with medical detachments on both sides of the river and seven general hospitals. The cemetery is now the responsibility of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Burials The cemetery contains 4,621 burials from the First World War, of which more than 3,000 were interred after the end of the war. Only 3,696 of the dead have been identified. In 1933, the grave headstones were removed after it was found that they were being damaged by salts in the soil and a memorial wall erected instead with the names of the dead engraved upon