On the morning of August 21, at the military terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee for searching, repatriating and identifying martyrs' remains coordinated with the Air Defense - Air Force Service to organize the transportation and handover of 7,104 samples of martyrs' remains to Hanoi by CASA-295 military aircraft to conduct DNA testing.
Attending the ceremony were: Lieutenant General Le Xuan The - Member of the Party Central Committee, Commander of Military Region 7; Major General Tran Chi Tam - Deputy Political Commissar of Military Region 7, Head of the Steering Committee of Military Region 7 on searching, repatriating and identifying martyrs' remains; Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong - Member of the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Head of the Steering Committee of Ho Chi Minh City on searching, repatriating and identifying martyrs' remains; Major General Nguyen Huy Tuan - Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee, Deputy Political Commissar of the Air Defense - Air Force Service; Major General Vu Van Dien - Member of the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee, Commander of Ho Chi Minh City Command.
At the ceremony, delegates performed the flower and incense offering ceremony to express gratitude to the heroic martyrs who sacrificed for the cause of national liberation. Immediately after that, the delegation handed over and transported 7,104 biological samples onto CASA-295 military aircraft.
By 8 am, the work of loading and unloading biological samples was completed. The plane moved to the runway, departing for Gia Lam military airport, Hanoi. This biological sample transportation activity is part of the 500-day and night campaign to search, repatriate and identify martyrs implemented by the Central Steering Committee.
Recently, Ho Chi Minh City has taken biological samples at 18 martyrs' cemeteries in the area. The city has taken samples from more than 9,800 graves with unidentified information. Among them, more than 7,000 sets of remains met technical standards to be sent for DNA testing this time.
All of the above biological samples will be handed over to the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and the Military Forensic Institute (Ministry of National Defense) for medical analysis.
In parallel with that, Ho Chi Minh City also coordinates with the Ministry of Public Security to collect information and build a DNA database of relatives of martyrs to compare and accurately identify remains that lack information.
Sharing at the ceremony, Major General Vu Van Dien - Member of the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee, Commander of the Ho Chi Minh City Command said: "This first specialized flight meets the biggest wish of the families and relatives to soon identify the identities to bring them back. In the coming time, the city's armed forces will continue to coordinate in searching for witnesses, collecting information and organizing searches of all suspicious areas in the area that may still have martyrs' remains.
Along with the work of taking biological samples at cemeteries, the city's armed forces are promoting the search and repatriation of martyrs' remains in suspected areas. The search at Le Thi Rieng Park has been deployed for more than a month. The City Steering Committee is also continuing to verify information from people at 12 suspected mass graves locations, including the Tan Son Nhat, Binh Chanh, Bao Ban (Cu Chi) airport areas, and the K76A, K76B hospital areas (Hoa Hiep commune). Most recently, functional forces successfully repatriated 5 martyrs' remains in Thuong Tan commune thanks to information provided by the people.
The transportation of more than 7,100 specimens of martyrs' remains is not only a professional task, but also carries gratitude to those who bravely sacrificed for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland. Each sample being transported is another opportunity to find the identity for a martyr; each accurate examination result is another family that can close the years of waiting, bringing the heroes back to their names, homeland and the arms of their loved ones.
