Renovating and expanding the Vi Xuyen Martyrs' Cemetery.

The resting place of thousands of martyrs who defended the northern border will be expanded from 2 hectares to 10 hectares.

On September 9th, Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung, along with leaders of Ha Giang province, visited the Vi Xuyen Martyrs' Cemetery to offer incense and pay respects to the heroic martyrs. The delegation from the Ministry of Labour and the provincial leaders conducted a field survey and discussed upgrading and expanding the cemetery, as well as searching for and relocating the remains of martyrs to the cemetery.

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung, Secretary of the Ha Giang Provincial Party Committee Trieu Tai Vinh, and Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Son offered incense to commemorate the martyrs at Vi Xuyen Cemetery. Photo: PX

According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hung, Deputy Director of the Ha Giang Department of Construction, the province will expand the cemetery from over 2 hectares to 10 hectares in the near future, with many new facilities, capable of accommodating more than 4,000 martyrs. This is the largest project among the 10 cemeteries in the area, containing 1,734 graves of martyrs who died in the war to protect the northern border. Due to limited space, the Vi Xuyen cemetery has run out of available graves and had to request permission from the province to build more to accommodate martyrs whose remains were collected at the beginning of the year.

Currently, Ha Giang province is facing difficulties in locating the remains of fallen soldiers. Colonel Duong Hong Vinh, Deputy Political Commissar of the Provincial Military Command, stated that the remains of fallen soldiers are mainly found in valleys, forest edges, and mountain gorges, covering a fairly wide area of ​​over 80,000 hectares, with complex terrain and numerous unexploded ordnance sites. From 2012 to the present, search teams have recovered 41 sets of remains, but approximately 2,000 remains of fallen soldiers remain uncollected.

"With the current approach, only about 200 hectares of land contaminated with bombs and mines can be cleared each year. The remaining area is very large, and it will take several decades to complete the task," Colonel Vinh said.

The delegation discussed plans for renovating and expanding the Vi Xuyen Martyrs' Cemetery. Photo: PX

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung expressed his support for the province's policy of renovating and beautifying cemeteries, especially continuing the search for and collection of the remains of fallen soldiers. He suggested that Ha Giang should research and develop a separate plan to expedite the process of clearing bombs, mines, and explosive materials to quickly collect the remains. The longer the delay, the more difficult the search becomes, leaving the families of the fallen soldiers uneasy.

"This is a matter of great concern to the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Labour. The renovation and upgrading of the cemetery must be carefully planned and designed to ensure solemnity, convenience for relatives, citizens, and comrades visiting, and to become a project for educating future generations about patriotic traditions," Mr. Dung said.

During the Northern border war, Ha Giang was one of the first areas to engage in combat and the last to emerge from it. To defend the border, nine main divisions along with numerous regiments and battalions of Vietnamese troops directly participated in the fighting at the Vi Xuyen front. More than 4,000 officers and soldiers sacrificed their lives.

According to VNE