From a tomb in the middle of a people's cemetery
In the dry sun after rain of autumn day, the uniforms of officers and soldiers of the Team for Searching and Repatriating Martyrs' Remains (temporary), Lao Cai Provincial Military Command, were soaked in sweat and dirt when excavating the tomb of an unidentified martyr at Quang Kim village people's cemetery, Bat Xat commune. The scene is always kept in a solemn atmosphere. Each hoe and shovel strike is carried out carefully. When traces and artifacts suspected of being related to the martyr are discovered, the soldiers stop to classify, record, and preserve them for verification.
While carefully checking each artifact, Major Dang Xuan Truong - Team for searching and repatriating martyrs' remains (temporary) - shared: "Every time we find a artifact or trace of a martyr, we encourage each other to try our best. We just hope to find more martyrs' remains so that their identities can be identified soon and they can return to their families, homeland and comrades.
Since its establishment in May 2026, 54 officers and soldiers of the Team for Searching and Repatriating Martyrs' Remains (temporary) have carried out over 4,942 working days, processed about 826.9ha of soil and rock and cleared 290.93ha. Currently, the force is divided into 3 groups, deployed in Bat Xat commune, Muong Khuong commune and Pha Long commune, and continues to expand searches in areas with related information.
Lieutenant Colonel Phung Duc Anh - Head of the Team for Searching and Repatriating Martyrs' Remains (temporary) - said that before receiving the task, each officer and soldier had a different working position. When gathered into the team, everyone quickly agreed on the goal, united, and supported each other to complete the task. "We are determined to find more martyrs' remains, striving to complete the goal of finding 70-80 martyrs' remains by July 2027" - Lieutenant Colonel Phung Duc Anh said.
Information will continue to be searched for.
Searching for martyrs' remains not only starts from the scene but is also a process of reviewing, collecting, verifying and comparing information. The Lao Cai Provincial Military Command coordinates with localities, veterans and people to exploit many sources of documents, searching for traces from old locations, stations, battles, places of burial of martyrs to compare with dossiers and actual surveys.
Many seemingly disjointed clues such as place names, streams, hills or witness memories, when connected to archival documents, can open up new directions of searching.
Lieutenant Colonel Mai Van Phu - Head of the Policy Department, Lao Cai Provincial Military Command - said: "Each source of information is reviewed, compared with records and verified in reality before being transferred to the search organization force. Therefore, we always try not to let any clues be ignored.
Lieutenant Colonel Pham Khac Truong - Political Commissar of the Team for searching and repatriating martyrs' remains (temporary) - recounted: There were trips where he and his comrades had to walk for many hours through the forest, overcome steep slopes, carrying food, specialized tools and equipment for searching. The job was not only digging and searching but also surveying, verifying, and comparing each piece of information with archives, battlefield diagrams and witness accounts.
In very difficult times, but every time we think about being able to contribute to bringing martyrs back to their families, we have more motivation to continue trying" - Senior Lieutenant Colonel Pham Khac Truong said. With that thought, in each trip, he is often the pioneer, directly surveying each position. When work encounters difficulties or many days without results, he and his comrades review from the beginning, finding new possibilities.
According to Colonel Hoang Van Toan - Deputy Political Commissar of the Lao Cai Provincial Military Command, to date, the province has collected 27 sets of martyrs' remains; surveyed 32 martyrs' graves and collected 824 DNA samples of martyrs' remains out of a total of 1,259 samples, serving the work of verifying and comparing information.
