Remains of Chinese troops killed in Korean war set to return home
It will be the fifth annual return under a 2013 agreement which has so far seen 569 sets of remains sent back
A Chinese officer saluted Monday as the remains of 20 former comrades were arrayed in a South Korean military facility ahead of their return home, decades after they died in the Korean war.
The brown-stained bones – including some near-complete skulls – were laid out on tables at the temporary ossuary in Incheon before being placed in identical boxes pending their repatriation Wednesday.
It will be the fifth annual return under a 2013 agreement which has so far seen 569 sets of remains sent back.
Communist Chinese forces played a crucial role in support of the North during the 1950-53 Korean war, but former South Korean president Park Geun-hye offered to return the bodies of Beijing’s war dead as a goodwill gesture.
Mao Zedong sent millions of troops to intervene as US-led United Nations forces drove Kim Il-sung’s army back towards the Chinese frontier in late 1950, saving the North from defeat in a decisive turning point in the war.