exclusive! A large number of remains of the Chinese People's Volunteers in South Korea searched for and identified details exposed!
Today is the 71st anniversary of the Chinese People's Volunteers' resistance to US aggression and aid to Korea.
From 2014 to 2021, China and South Korea followed humanitarian principles, in a spirit of friendly consultation and pragmatic cooperation, and successfully handed over the remains of 825 Chinese People’s Volunteers in South Korea for eight consecutive years.
The Ministry of Veterans Affairs took the lead in the relevant military and local departments to establish a DNA database of martyrs' remains for all the first seven batches of returnees who were buried in the Korean Volunteer Army, and confirmed multiple martyrs by searching and comparing relics, searching historical archives, and comparing biological information technology. Identity find relatives.
Through interviews with retired military affairs workers, scientific research experts, scholars, excavators, journalists based in South Korea, etc., this article reveals the mechanism of the operation of the Korean martyrs' remains search and identification agency and the behind-the-scenes stories of the discovery and identification, and tells the current China's search and identification of martyrs' remains. The efforts made in the field and the technological breakthroughs obtained have looked forward to the development direction of the search and identification of the martyrs' remains in China, and put forward some work enlightenments and suggestions.
The transfer of the remains of the Korean Volunteers has become a common practice
22-year-old Liu Bin is serving in the military in South Korea and is a captain.
When the reporter contacted him by phone, he had just participated in the excavation of the eighth batch of the remains of the Chinese People's Volunteers in South Korea this year.
Every year on June 25th, the anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korea will start a two-month skeletal excavation operation, which has been uninterrupted since 2013.
In addition to experts in archaeology, history, anthropology, identification, etc., participating in this vast project, there are also thousands of active military personnel like Liu Bin.
The annual excavation task will mobilize troops around the excavation area to take turns to participate, and soldiers can apply for it voluntarily according to the training plan.
Liu Bin once studied in China and has a special affection for China. At the end of June this year, he and 12 comrades in arms voluntarily applied to participate in the excavation.
"At most, there are more than 2,000 people on a mountain at the same time performing development and excavation work." Liu Bin told reporters that all soldiers involved in the excavation must receive training on site protection, remains identification, and the use of archaeological tools before they can start work.
South Korea’s annual excavation work is led by the Forensic Excavation Team under the Ministry of Defense of South Korea.
Before the excavation, the investigation team based on the war history data, the participants and the nearby residents, combined with the remnants of the war, marked the places where the battle took place on the map with longitude and latitude, and determined the excavation site before reporting to the local area. The administration and the landowner apply.
Subsequently, many of the associated excavation units will carry out excavations under the guidance of experts in accordance with the division of labor.
On July 6, 2021, Liu Bin and his comrades finally discovered a human leg bone after the 9th day of continuous work.
"Before handing over to the on-site remains recovery team, we almost spelled out the skeleton outline of this soldier." But what attracted Liu Bin the most attention was the Chinese characters and special patterns on the soles of the remains of the foot bones, and they determined that it was China. soldier.
Hyeonchungwon is located at the foothills of Gwanaksan Mountain in Seoul, South Korea.
Surrounded by mountains on three sides, it is the National Cemetery of South Korean Soldiers and the site of the Remains Excavation Forensic Team of the Ministry of Defense of South Korea.
Stepping into the gate of the Discovery Forensic Group, the group motto-"Let them return to the embrace of the motherland" is engraved on the stone tablet on the right.
The remains and relics discovered by Liu Bin were finally sent here to complete the follow-up identification work.
According to a research project conducted by the Martyrs' Remains Search and Identification Center of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, in 2000, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense planned to carry out the search and excavation of martyrs' remains.
On January 1, 2007, the Ministry of National Defense issued the Order of the Remains Excavation Forensic Group, which officially established the Remains Excavation Forensic Group.
Over the next 10 years, South Korea has revised and promulgated a number of laws or regulations.
The reporter learned that the law empowers the skeletal discovery team to formulate and implement a medium- and long-term plan to excavate the remains of the Korean army killed in the Korean War, investigate, confirm and excavate the remains, confirm the identity of the remains and confirm the survivors, and collect, preserve and manage the excavation data. And other duties.
The skeletal excavation forensic team consists of five departments, including the Planning and Operation Division (Division), Investigation and Excavation Division (Division), Identity Confirmation Division (Division), Monitoring Room, and Support Team.
After nearly 20 years of development, the institution has formed a relatively mature work system and a complete system mechanism in the field of remains excavation and identification, and has trained a large number of professional and technical personnel.
On the morning of September 1, at a temporary resettlement site in Incheon, South Korea, People’s Daily reporter Zhang Yue in South Korea was fortunate to witness the entire process of embellishing the remains and relics of the eighth batch of Chinese People’s Volunteers in South Korea.
“South Korea’s rigorous work attitude and professional operation left a deep impression on people!” Zhang Yue told reporters that the staff carefully wrapped each piece of martyrs’ remains with cotton and cocoons in Goryeo paper and put them into wooden coffins. , And put flowers outside the coffin.
Each relic was carefully cleaned up and registered with a serial number.
Each process and operation of the staff has specific requirements.
The Korean expert Dr. Im Nahyok participated in the identification and handover of all eight batches of the remains of volunteer martyrs.
The Central Forensic Institute where she is responsible for confirming the identity of the remains is composed of personnel with a master's degree or above in archeology, anthropology, and biology.
From 2014 to 2021, China and South Korea followed humanitarian principles, in the spirit of friendly consultation and pragmatic cooperation, and successfully handed over the remains of eight batches of 825 martyrs for eight consecutive years.
"The remains of the Chinese People's Volunteers unearthed in South Korea will continue to be handed over to China. This has become a common practice." Cooperation and exchanges, actively promote the protection of the remains of the Volunteer Army in Korea, and continue to do a good job in the routine transfer and return of the remains of the Volunteer Army.
Lv Chao, chief expert of the North Korea and South Korea Research Center of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said that China and South Korea have cooperated for eight consecutive years in the handover of the remains of the volunteers in South Korea, showing South Korea’s greatest goodwill and full respect and etiquette for the volunteers, and its political significance. It not only promotes the friendly relations between China and South Korea and the friendly feelings between the two peoples, but also has practical significance for maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The core technology of remains identification has reached the international advanced level
Zhanwuzhuang Village, Fogesi Town, Xincai County, is located 135 kilometers southeast of Zhumadian City, Henan Province.
Zhanwuzhuang Village is the hometown of Zhanzhizhong, the seventh batch of martyrs of the Chinese People's Volunteers in Korea.
Following the return of Zhan Zhizhong's remains, there is a seal numbered CHN-626 with "Zhan Zhizhong" inscribed.
The Martyrs Remains Search and Appraisal Center of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and the Military Medical Research Institute of the Academy of Military Sciences searched for historical materials and archive records, combined with the martyrs' sacrifice time, combat location, and location of the remains to find a list of 431 martyrs. The retired military affairs departments of municipalities and autonomous regions jointly assisted in arranging the relatives of martyrs and organized 333 relatives of martyrs to participate in DNA information collection and identification comparison. More than 10 experts including 3 academicians from military and civilian units conducted evaluation and demonstration, and finally showed Zhizhong Wait for the identity and kinship of the four martyrs to be confirmed.
"Using DNA and other technical means to determine the identity of martyrs and their relatives is a new field and breakthrough in martyrs' praise work." Li Zhongshui told reporters that this is the first time since the establishment of the Martyrs' Remains Search and Identification Center of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs to undertake the identification and comparison of martyrs' remains. .
The identification of the remains of martyrs is an extremely complex and rigorous task.
The task team overcame difficulties such as long time, lack of information, and long kinship, and successfully confirmed the identity of the martyrs in a short time, which verified the feasibility of the path of identification and comparison of martyrs' remains.
On April 16, 2020, the Martyrs Memorial Facilities Protection Center (Remains Search and Identification Center) of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs was formally established. The search and identification of martyrs' remains, the collection of martyrs' deeds and relics are one of its main responsibilities.
According to the reporter's understanding, at present, the relevant units of the military and local governments led by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs have completed the collection of DNA information on the remains of the volunteers who have been welcomed back, established the DNA database of the remains of the volunteers, and completed the translation of the foreign language materials of the volunteers. Thousands of martyrs' relics were counted and sorted out, and all electronic files were established.
In the next step, the remains search and identification center will establish a DNA database for martyrs' remains and a DNA database for martyrs' family members, and compare the DNA information of the two databases to strive for more martyrs to find their relatives.
If the comparison is not successful, it will be further compared in the DNA database of the Ministry of Public Security.
At the same time, through clues such as relics, continue to carry out family-hunting activities for other unknown heroes.
In January 2015, the state launched the "Bone Loyalty Program", and Wang Shengqi, a researcher at the Academy of Military Medical Research of the Academy of Military Sciences, and his team were tasked to establish a "DNA database of the remains of volunteers in Korea."
In the DNA database of the remains of the Korean Volunteers Martyrs
Wang Shengqi told reporters that the identification of the remains of volunteer martyrs needs to overcome two major problems: First, due to the age of the martyrs and the poor burying conditions, the degradation of the remains is very serious, which brings great difficulties to DNA extraction.
Second, most volunteer martyrs had no offspring at the time of their sacrifice, and few of their parents and siblings were alive. They mainly relied on DNA comparisons of distant relatives to carry out complex kinship identification.
These are two recognized technical problems in the world.
"The overall level is internationally advanced, and some technologies are internationally pioneered." After years of hard work, the Wang Shengqi team broke through the core technical bottlenecks such as low success rate of DNA extraction from old remains, high inhibitors, and long time. The DNA extraction of remains can be completed within 6 hours at the fastest Work, the extraction success rate can reach more than 95%.
The institutional system urgently needs to be further improved and perfected
On the afternoon of September 17, the reporter came to the Academy of Military Medicine of the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing.
Here, Wang Shengqi and team members are going to Shenyang to carry out preparatory work for the eighth batch of DNA sampling of the remains of the Korean Volunteers.
“Combined with military and local superior units and resources to establish national martyrs’ remains DNA identification and other specialized agencies, systematically and routinely carry out the basic information database of missing martyrs and relatives, the construction of DNA databases, and the comparison of relatives, and do our utmost to make everyone nameless. The martyrs are famous'." Wang Shengqi said that at present, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Europe and other countries and regions have successively set up special bodies for the excavation and identification of human remains.
In order to promote the establishment of the National Martyrs' Remains Excavation and Appraisal Agency, relevant departments have been working hard over the years.
"Promote the establishment of a relatives DNA database as soon as possible and race against time. This work is urgent and urgent!" Wang Shengqi said that the relatives DNA database is as important as the martyrs' DNA database. He suggested that the DNA samples of the martyrs' close relatives should be collected as soon as possible to improve the success of cognition and comparison. Rate, accuracy and efficiency.
He also suggested that social forces should be widely mobilized, including the retired military affairs department, public security, medical and health system and other departments to jointly make efforts to allow more survivors and relatives of martyrs to take samples.
Wang Shengqi said frankly that it is the first time in China to develop a DNA database for martyrs and to compare relatives. Compared with other countries, China has a large gap in terms of specialized agencies, full-time personnel, technical standards, and laws and regulations. To meet the task requirements of systematic, large-scale and normalized development of martyrs' DNA database construction and identification of relatives.
"Martyrs seek relatives. This is a posture of the country and a commitment to soldiers. No matter where you are, the country has the responsibility to bring you home." said Lu Chao, chief expert of the North Korea and South Korea Research Center of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. During the period of war or the period of peace building, the people's respect for the heroes and martyrs should never change.
Using modern technology to find relatives for the heroic spirits of the martyrs who died 70 years ago, and to find the remains of the martyrs, this is the people's reverence for the martyrs and the respect and comfort to the relatives of the martyrs. It also demonstrates the responsibility of a big country and a political party.
Li Zhongshui told reporters that South Korea has a relatively complete legal system for the excavation and identification of martyrs' remains.
However, South Korea’s legislation is based on “searching, excavating and identifying the merits of the country”, and the remains of volunteer martyrs are in a passive state of excavation.
In recent years, China and South Korea have laid a solid foundation for cooperation in the excavation, identification, and handover of the remains of volunteer martyrs.
However, China’s martyrs’ remains search and appraisal work started late, with a weak foundation, and lack of experience in the discovery and appraisal work. It is necessary to increase exchanges and cooperation to learn from experience. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen basic research, master advanced experience, and improve work capabilities for long-term development of martyrs. A good foundation has been laid for the search, identification and protection of remains.
It is understood that South Korea’s search and appraisal team is mainly organized by the military, and its business units are all under the Ministry of National Defense, with advanced hardware, complete personnel, and extensive professional coverage.
In China, there is a big gap in terms of specialized agencies, full-time personnel, technical standards, and laws and regulations.
Li Zhongshui suggested that China can give full play to the advantages of relevant domestic military and local units and scientific research institutes of universities, and use intelligence to promote the establishment of a professional team platform such as search, discovery and identification.
Li Zhongshui said that China can gradually formulate and promulgate laws and regulations related to the search and identification of martyrs’ remains in accordance with the overall design and step-by-step implementation. System construction, work standards, etc., establish a unified nationally standardized system of excavation and protection procedures, so that more volunteer martyrs can return to the embrace of the motherland as soon as possible.