Remains of 36 soldiers home from S. Korea
Print Edition
THE remains of 36 Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War were returned to China yesterday, the third batch following a handover agreement signed in 2013.
Escorted by two Chinese J-11 fighter jets, an IL-76 transport plane carrying the soldiers’ coffins landed at Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, around 11:30am.
The remains will be buried in a martyrs’ park in the city this morning.
Du Yuxin, a soldier who took part in a reception ceremony, said: “I am honored to join in the task of receiving the soldiers’ remains. They are heroes.”
Earlier, a ceremony was held at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport where the coffins were handed over to a Chinese delegation led by Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei.
China’s Ambassador to South Korea Qiu Guohong covered the coffins with the national flag before the remains were flown home.
Dou expressed China’s gratitude for the cooperation and efforts of the South Korean side, as well as for the goodwill shown by its people over the handover.
In 2013, South Korean President Park Geun-hye offered to return the bodies of the Chinese war dead as a goodwill gesture during a visit to Beijing.
The remains of 505 soldiers were returned to China in 2014 and 2015.
The Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) fought with North Korea’s army in the Korean War against the South Korean army and US-led UN forces. Nearly 200,000 CPV soldiers have been confirmed as killed in the war, most of whom were buried on the Korean Peninsula.
The bodies were initially in small plots scattered around the country.
In 1996, Seoul designated a special cemetery plot in Paju, south of the border with North Korea, where the remains of Chinese and North Korean soldiers could be buried together.
More than 700 North Korean soldiers are interred at Paju, but Pyongyang has ignored Seoul’s offer to return them.
The site also holds the bodies of more than two dozen North Korean commandos killed in an unsuccessful 1968 attack on the presidential palace in Seoul.
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