South Korea to return remains of 25 Chinese soldiers killed in Korean War

SEOUL: The remains of 25 Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War will be repatriated to their home country next week, the Defense Ministry said Friday, the 10th repatriation of its kind.

A ceremony to hand over the remains will take place on November 23 at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, to be jointly organized by the ministry and China’s Ministry of Veterans Affairs, Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea has so far returned 913 sets of remains of Chinese soldiers killed during the war since the two countries agreed on a repatriation project in 2014.

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said it would “continue to repatriate the remains of Chinese soldiers excavated in South Korea as part of humanitarian efforts and friendly cooperation between South Korea and China”.

China and the then-Soviet Union supported Pyongyang during the war, which began with North Korea’s invasion of South Korea.

The conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war.