News-Info-Alerts

Re: US Search Team Arrives in North Korea

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 24, 2002

"U.S. team arrives in North Korea to look for MIAs

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) Forensic experts arrived in North Korea Saturday to search for the remains of American soldiers listed as missing in action from the Korean War.

The team will be searching two locations in this reclusive communist nation, said Lt. Col. Orlando Lopez of the Defense POW Missing Personnel Office. He did not elaborate.

More than 8,100 U.S. troops are unaccounted for from the 1950-53 Korean War. Since 1996, U.S. teams have recovered 159 sets of remains in North Korea, 13 of which have been identified.

The monthlong search starting Saturday is the second of three the United States plans in North Korea this year. The third search will begin in October.

The Pentagon said this week that in the first search, U.S. teams recovered remains believed to be those of seven missing American soldiers.

Six of the seven were recovered near the Chosin Reservoir about 50 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital. U.S. forces suffered heavy casualties in the area in late 1950, and many Americans were hastily buried in shallow graves during a retreat.

Pentagon officials have estimated that the Chosin area eventually could yield about remains of 1,000 American servicemen.

The seventh set of remains was recovered along the Chongchon River near the junction of Unsan and Kujang counties, about 60 miles north of the capital. The area was the site of fighting between the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry Division and Chinese forces in November 1950.

North Korea must approve the repatriation of any remains, which then undergo DNA and other tests in Hawaii for identification with the cooperation of family members, said Lopez.

The Korean War ended without a peace treaty and the border between North and South remains sealed.

Some 1.8 million Americans served on the side of South Korea during the war, which began on June 25, 1950 when the North invaded the South. The United States still stations 37,000 troops in South Korea.

© Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company"