LONDON, April 29 (Xinhua) -- "Pervasive racism" was behind the failures to properly commemorate African and Asian troops who died fighting for the British Empire during the First World War (WWI), and what happened more than a century ago is "shocking" and "abhorrent", British WWI experts told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Dr George Hay, historian with Britain's Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), said: "From our perspective we now want to see appropriate commemorations for all of those killed in the war. Fully understanding what happened in the past is the next phase of our work, working with historians on how we can put these oversights right."

According to a report from the CWGC, which is tasked with commemorating those who died in the two world wars, between 45,000 and 54,000 named casualties are or were in some way deliberately treated differently to those killed in Europe.

In addition, it is estimated that at least 116,000, but potentially as many as 350,000, casualties may not be commemorated by name or may not be commemorated at all, primarily across East Africa and Egypt.

The reason behind the inequality is the "entrenched prejudices, preconceptions and pervasive racism of contemporary imperial attitudes," said the report.

What was troubling is that some people who were killed in the war have never been commemorated by name, Hay said.

He agreed that some words used in the past was deeply unpleasant, referring to dead war participants as "savages" because of the areas of Africa where they came from.

The report was prompted by a television documentary called "The Unremembered", which explored the then British Imperial War Graves Commission's treatment of African war dead in the aftermath of the WWI.

The rules of the commission are that whatever an individual's rank in social or military life, they would be commemorated identically, with their names engraved either on a headstone over an identified grave or on a memorial to the missing.

The report found that although the organization upheld its promise of equality of treatment in Europe, that was not always the case for some ethnic groups elsewhere.

The British government has apologized for failures to properly commemorate African and Asian troops who died in WWI fighting for the British Empire. But London's apology is considered far from enough and long overdue.

Professor Mark Connelly, historian of WWI and one of the committee members that produced the report, said what happened in places like Africa was always there in the background but he was surprised and shocked by the revelations."

"Race was an important part of the atmosphere, it was thought of in hierarchal terms," he said.

"There was perversive racism at the time, with references such as 'half savages'. It was common parlance at the time," he said. "To us, such terminology is abhorrent." Enditem

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