Focus on identifying the remains of martyrs who died in Laos

On the afternoon of June 15, Steering Committee 1237 of Nghe An province held a conference to summarize the work of collecting martyrs' graves in the dry season of 2017 - 2018, and to set out the direction and tasks of searching and collecting martyrs' graves in the dry season of 2018 - 2019.

Comrade Le Ngoc Hoa - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of Steering Committee 1237 Nghe An and Senior Lieutenant Colonel Thai Duc Hanh - Political Commissar of the Provincial Military Command, Deputy Head of the Standing Steering Committee 1237 of the province co-chaired the conference. Also attending were Major General Doan Ngoc Son - Deputy Head of Political Department of Military Region 4; Colonel Tran Van Hung - Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, Commander of the Military Command of Nghe An province.

Conference scene. Photo: Tien Hung

During the 2017-2018 dry season, the Collection Team found and recovered 98 remains of Vietnamese Volunteer Soldiers and Experts who died in Laos, to bring to Nghi Loc District Martyrs Cemetery for burial, reaching 122.5% of the set plan.

Among them, there are 12 remains with names but unknown hometown, one remains matches the information provided by the unit to the family, 2 martyr remains are on the list of Division 312, Army Corps 1...

During the 2017-2018 dry season, the Nghe An Province Collection Team found 98 remains of martyrs who died in Laos. Photo: Tien Hung

At the Conference, Lieutenant Colonel Le Van Trung - Political Commissar, Nghe An Provincial Military Command pointed out the difficulties in collecting martyrs' graves in Laos.

Accordingly, in the areas where the Collection Team is in charge, the lives of Lao people still face many difficulties, and in some areas there are still reactionary forces operating against them, so the security situation is very complicated. The number of people who know the graves of martyrs is still small, they have moved, are old or have passed away. Meanwhile, the equipment for the collection work has also deteriorated...

The martyrs' remains were brought back to Nghi Loc District Martyrs' Cemetery for burial. Photo: Tien Hung

Established in 1984, the Search and Collection Team of the Nghe An Military Command was assigned to search in the three provinces of Xiangkhouang, Vientiane and Xaysomboun. Xiangkhouang is said to be the province with the most Vietnamese volunteer soldiers sacrificed. Of the total 98 remains collected in the 2017-2018 dry season, 87 were found in this province.

The search for remains encountered many difficulties due to the changing terrain. Photo: Hien Tung

The conference also pointed out some limitations as well as shared experiences in the work of collecting remains, and at the same time set out tasks and solutions for the dry season of 2018 - 2019 such as the collection process must draw specific diagrams for each grave, each location, and strictly manage storage.

At the end of each collection period, we must actively and proactively coordinate closely with inspection units, compare archived records with collection records to make the greatest effort to identify the martyrs' remains....