I have a git repo with tens of remotes which have been merge
Are those branches removed from the remote (origin)? If yes, you can simply do
git fetch --prune origin
Otherwise they might return even after you delete them locally.
Update: Looking at your command again, it looks like you're building it incorrectly. You probably want
git push origin --delete myBranch-1234
but instead you are doing something like
git push origin --delete origin/myBranch-1234