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An excavation project to unearth the remains of soldiers fallen during the Korean War takes place near Pungcheon Village, Hongcheon County, Gangwon Province, on June 25. (Yonhap News)
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Remains of US soldiers to be returned within the week
The remains of US soldiers who died in North Korea while fighting in the Korean War are to be returned as early as this week. With repatriation procedures for the remains set to begin as agreed upon by the North Korean and US leaders in their joint statement following a June 12 summit in Singapore, many are now watching to see whether efforts to unearth and return the bodies of South and North Korean soldiers who also died during the war gain momentum. South and North Korea’s first agreement on excavating the remains of soldiers who died in the Korean War dates back to 2007. In a second round of defense minister talks in Pyongyang that November, the South Korean side moved first to propose jointly pursuing an excavation project for the war’s missing soldiers. North Korea accepted the proposal, and the two sides agreed to “discuss and resolve related pursuit measures under the shared understanding that the excavation of remains from the war is an issue related to the building of military trust and ending the war.” It was a pledge by South and North to jointly survey and excavate the remains of soldiers lost during the Korean War – but the terms of the agreement have yet to be implemented amid souring ties between the two sides ever since. The first and last case of remains of South Korean soldiers from North Korea being returned home occurred in 2012 through the US. Between 1999 and 2005, the US performed DNA testing on human remains excavated from combat sites in North Korea. Twelve of the bodies were found to belong to South Korean soldiers, and the remains were eventually returned to South Korea in May 2012. The South Korean government has been working steadily since 2000 to unearth the remains of Korean War dead. A three-year excavation was carried out as part of a project for the 50th anniversary of the war in Apr. 2004; in July 2003, a decision to continue the project on an ongoing basis was made at a meeting of defense and veterans’ affairs ministers. Following the government’s decision to institute the project on a permanent basis as of June 2005, an excavation and identification team was set up in 2007 within the Ministry of National Defense. In 2008, the Act on the Excavation of the Remains of Soldiers Killed in the Korean War was introduced. According to figures from the Ministry of National Defense excavation and identification team, a total of 11,206 bodies of soldiers killed in the Korean War had been unearthed as of May 31, 2018 – 9,874 of them belonging to South Korean soldiers. All excavated remains belonging to UN troops (17) and Chinese troops (589) have been returned to their home countries. While many bodies of North Korean soldiers have been excavated on South Korean territory – 723 to date – none has yet been returned to the North due to strained inter-Korean relations. The remains are currently being held in storage by the South Korean government. Defense ministry estimates 30-40,000 bodies buried in DMZ The bodies of South Korean troops are said to be buried all around North Korean territory. The Ministry of National Defense estimates somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 bodies of South Korean war dead may be buried in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and parts of North Korea. Could the remains of South Korean soldiers buried in North Korea be yet returned to their families? In a memorial address for the 63rd Memorial Day this past June 6, President Moon Jae-in shared his commitment to unearthing the remains of soldiers killed in Korean War, pledging to “make a priority of excavating remains in the DMZ once inter-Korean relations improve” and indicating that the “remains of US and other overseas soldiers could be excavated as well.” According to the Blue House, President Moon told US President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation shortly after the North Korea-US summit on June 12 that he would “discuss with North Korea about South Korea, North Korea, and the US jointly pursuing” an excavation project, noting that it had “also been agreed upon between South and North.” For that reason, the day the two sides’ agreement 11 years ago to joint unearth remains is actually executed appears to be not too far off. By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
