TEHRAN - During the Nowruz holidays, which officially commenced on March 20th, some 65,000 visitors flocked to war memorials and Sacred Defense museums across Ilam province in western Iran.

According to the Office for Preservation of Sacred Defense values in Ilam, among the visited locations were war memorials, former battlefields, the Defense Museum Garden, and the cemetery of unknown martyrs.

Mohammad-Hossein Fouladi, who presides over the office, on Tuesday elaborated that the Nowruz travelers, whether traveling in caravans or on their own, commenced their visits from March 15 to April, covering a broad period to explore these historical landmarks.

Experts say former war zones and museums are sometimes triggered to make guesses about the stories of people who lost their lives, displaced, wounded, captured, or lost their loved ones in those bitter moments of mankind.

The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq, locally marked as Sacred Defense, was launched by the order of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly 19 months after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. It drew to a close in August 1988 and the United Nations declared Saddam as the initiator of the conflict.

It was the second-longest war of the 20th century after the Vietnam War.

AM