Names of 33,000 Indian soldiers added to First World War memorial on April 24, 2026

Key facts

• The Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) introduced digital name panels for the Basra Memorial in Iraq.
• The digital memorial includes the names of 33,000 Indian Army soldiers who died during the First World War.
• These soldiers were part of the Mesopotamia Campaign, which took place in Iraq, then known as Mesopotamia.
• The digital memorial lists the Indian soldiers alongside over 46,000 Commonwealth service personnel.
• Shrabani Basu, a CWGC Global Advisory Panel member, is the author of the book 'For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front 1914-18'.
• The CWGC commemorates over 1.7 million Commonwealth service personnel who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars.