Vietnam News Brief Service
Remains of More Than 800 Vietnamese Soldiers Repatriated from Laos
A total of 813 sets of remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts, who were killed in Laos during the war against the US before 1975 and against royalist exiles and minority hill tribes, were repatriated in the 2003-04 dry season. The figure was reported at a meeting in central Nghe An province to review results of the search operations for the remains of Vietnamese martyrs in Laos.
These remains have been handed over to localities and reburied in war cemeteries across the country. The military command in Nghe An province has together with other related military units identified names and addresses of 214 sets of remains and has then transferred them to 29 northern provinces and cities.
At the meeting, participants discussed experiences and challenges in the search for the remains in Laos. They also proposed measures and petitions in order to better carry out the search and regrouping work. The Vietnamese authorities have never published the total number of Vietnamese missing in action (MIAs) in Laos and Cambodia during the war decades nor the number of repatriated MIAs to date.