In the last days of June, at Tam Thanh Martyrs' Cemetery, Quang Phu ward, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Viet, an officer of the commune military agency, and functional forces quietly carried out a special task: taking martyrs' remains samples for DNA testing.
That is not a job that only requires technique. Before each tomb being exhumed, all movements must be slow and careful. Many sets of remains have gone through too long, rotted, mixed with sand and impurities, making dissection not easy. But for Mr. Viet and his colleagues, behind each specimen is an opportunity. An opportunity for an unidentified martyr to be identified. An opportunity for a family to find their loved ones after decades of waiting.
We always try to complete our tasks well, so that the martyrs can return to their families completely," Mr. Viet shared.
In the mountainous commune of Tra Lien, functional forces have just successfully searched and repatriated 5 sets of remains of martyrs in the Thanh Truoc village area. Because the war has receded, the remaining artifacts do not have specific information, so all 5 martyrs have not been identified.
The memorial service and burial of the soldiers were solemnly held at Tra My Martyrs' Cemetery. In incense smoke, wreaths were laid down, delegates and people observed a minute of silence in front of the spirits of those who sacrificed for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland. No names to announce. No hometown to call back. But that return still made many people silent, because after many years lying in the ground, the soldiers had a solemn resting place in the hearts of the people.
The 500-day and night peak campaign to search, repatriate and identify martyrs' remains is being widely deployed in Da Nang. By the end of June 2026, the city has taken samples at 19 out of 144 martyrs' cemeteries; 14 cemeteries have been completed. Forces have exhumed 1,052 martyrs' graves without information, collecting 426 standard remains samples for DNA testing.
A noteworthy point of this campaign is that the sampling, dossier updates, and data digitization are carried out synchronously. Information about graves, sampling results, and related dossiers are centrally managed, serving the purpose of searching, comparing, and identifying identities in the coming time. Technology is put into a very sacred task: reconnecting data that was broken by war and time.
According to Vice Chairman of Da Nang City People's Committee Tran Anh Tuan, Head of Steering Committee 515 of the city, one of the major requirements set out in this campaign is to apply information technology to the process of managing, updating and digitizing data to identify martyrs' remains. The City Steering Committee assigned military agencies to coordinate in establishing management software, creating a platform for searching and comparing information to be carried out more scientifically and accurately.
