The bodies of two South Koreans killed in an ambush in Iraq Sunday will be repatriated early next week. The Foreign Ministry announced that the two bodies, which left Baghdad for Kuwait Friday afternoon, arrived at a U.S. Air base in Kuwait early Saturday morning, Korean time.

The ministry official added that from Kuwait, the bodies will be flown home via a third country aboard a civilian flight, as soon as postmortem procedures and necessary transportation arrangements are completed.

Two other South Koreans who were wounded in the same attack will leave the Iraqi city of Balad for Germany on Saturday at the earliest to receive further treatment for their gunshot injuries.

Suspected Iraqi insurgents shot to death 61-year-old Kwak Kyung-hae and 46-year-old Kim Man-soo last Sunday and wounded two others in a highway ambush near Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.