More than half of the 238 graves of Argentine soldiers who died during the Falklands War three decades ago bear no name and their comrades-in-arms want something done about it.

"The worst thing a person can lose is their identity," Ernesto Alonso, of the Veterans Commission in La Plata, Argentina, told AFP.

Alonso returned to the disputed islands three times after the 1982 conflict with Britain and said seeing so many graves bearing the inscription "Argentine soldier only known by God" in the Darwin cemetery led him and his comrades to take legal action in 2011 to change the situation.

"It's part of an ongoing process from the military dictatorship," he said. "The military never cared to investigate the identities of many of our comrades."

The Darwin cemetery, located 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital Stanley is much smaller than its British counterpart, located a few miles further north in San Carlos and where all 14 graves are identified.

On April 2, 1982, the then-ruling military junta in Argentina invaded the Falklands, sparking a 74-day war with Britain which cost the lives of 649 Argentine and 255 British troops.

Britain has held the Falklands since 1833, but Buenos Aires claims they are occupied Argentine territory.

"The Falklands War was the first conflict in which British forces were involved that the government allowed the families to take the bodies back to the UK if they wished to do so," said Graham Didlick, a Darwin House bed and breakfast owner and tourist guide.

The tombstones include one for 19-year-old paratrooper M. Holman-Smith.

"His dad and his uncles came out unscathed from the World War II that lasted five years, but he died here in a conflict that lasted only 74 days," Didlick added.

In the Argentine cemetery the white wooden crosses are painted once a year, a task undertaken by a 32-year-old Argentine caretaker, Sebastian Socodo.

He has lived in the Falklands since 2001, when he fled the financial crisis in his home country and ended up in Stanley thanks to a sister-in-law who lived there.

"The worst thing is the weather, the cemetery is in a very exposed area," said Socodo. "Sometimes I leave from Stanley under the sun and it's raining when I get to Darwin, so it's impossible to do anything."

The graves, adorned with rosaries, crucifixes, letters from relatives and flowers, are lashed by icy winds that sweep up the hill overlooking Wickham Heights, a rugged mountain chain on East Falkland.

Among the tombstones was a letter sent by Susana to her brother Alberto Chavez in early March in which she wrote "not a day goes by without me thinking of you."

But Susana was at least able to ask someone to place her letter on her brother's grave.

Dozens of relatives are not so lucky and in reality no one knows whose remains the 123 Argentine graves contain, where in Argentina they came from or how much they suffered before dying.

And Alonso said there was not even any certainty about the names on those graves which have been identified.

"There's a cross there under the name of Dante Pereira, but no one recalls seeing him die and no one remembers burying him," he noted.

A panel of relatives of those who died in the Falklands, known as the Malvinas in Spanish, employs Socodo to tend the graves and has built a monument in honor of the Argentine war dead. It is also backing legal action to identify the dead, but with some reservations.

Panel member Cesar Trejo said in Buenos Aires that before any action is taken, "all the relatives need to be consulted, because some families are against identification because they know that their loved ones are buried in Darwin."

He warned against turning the whole thing into a "festival of bones" and voiced fears the British may try "to remove the remains of fallen soldiers to transfer them to the mainland."

"We must as a society stop burdening God with all the work and take the responsibility of giving back their identity to those who gave their lives," said Alonso.