South Korea And China Agree To Return Korean War Soldiers

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JAKARTA - South Korea and China have agreed to repatriate the bodies of Chinese soldiers who died during the Korean War in 1950-1953.

Some of the bodies and belongings of the fallen soldiers will be placed in coffins in South Korea on September 15, 2022 and the following day will be handed over to the Chinese delegation before being repatriated to China on the same day.

This is a press statement from the Chinese Ministry of Veterans Affairs (MVA), which is monitored in Beijing, as reported by Antara, Tuesday, July 5.

The repatriation is the ninth batch of corpses of Chinese People's Volunteer Soldiers (CPV) in the Korean war era. Since 2014, there have been 825 bodies of CPV personnel who have been repatriated.

The determination of the date for the repatriation of the bodies of the ninth group was based on an agreement between the MVA and the South Korean Ministry of Defense reached on Sunday, July 3.

The two sides also agreed to increase cooperation in handing over the bodies of CPV personnel, which coincidentally this year marks the 30th anniversary of China-South Korea diplomatic relations.

The Korean War was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea that took place from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953. The war was a proxy war between the United States and its allies against Communist China in cooperation with the Soviet Union.

The death toll from the Korean War is estimated at nearly 40,000 from the US military, 46,000 from the South Korean army, 215,000 from the North Korean army, 400,000 from the Chinese army, and four million civilians.