News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Vietnam Has Remains of Soldiers

Date: September 22, 2001

"Vietnam Has Remains of Soldiers

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The remains of more than 300,000 communist Vietnamese soldiers, most killed during the Vietnam War, remain unidentified in war cemeteries, an official said Wednesday.

More than 700,000 communist soldiers are buried in the 3,053 war cemeteries, and an additional 114,304, mostly local militiamen, are buried elsewhere, the official of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said on condition of anonymity.

More than 300,000 of the graves in the war cemeteries remain unidentified and have headstones reading "unknown martyr," he said.

Most of the fatalities occurred during the Vietnam War, which ended with a communist victory over U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975. They also include victims of wars against French colonial rule, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1978, and a border war with China in 1979, the official said.

Vietnam's communist government does not publicize the number of non-Communist troops killed during the Vietnam War, and they are not buried in war cemeteries. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died during the war, along with about 58,000 Americans. "