Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has asked South Africa to send forensic experts to help probe apartheid-era mass graves discovered this month near the Angolan border, officials said on Wednesday. Namibian officials say dozens of people, possibly hundreds, are buried in the graves, believed to date to a 1989 battle between the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and South African security forces in which more than 300 people were reported killed.

Ndali Kamati, a presidential aide, and Frans Kapofi, secretary to the cabinet, confirmed that Pohamba had asked for South African forensic help to identify the bodies. “I know it was discussed,” Kamati told Reuters. Witnesses say the bullet-ridden remains appear to be mainly SWAPO fighters but include some children, who may have been their relatives.

Pohamba has urged former members of apartheid South Africa’s occupation army and their Namibian collaborators to come forward with information that could help identify the bodies, buried near the northern town of Eenhana near theThe head of the Namibian National Forensic Science Laboratory, Paul Ludik, has already started investigations into the graves.