On the afternoon of July 9, at a regular press conference on the socio-economic situation, Major General Nguyen Thanh Trung - Political Commissar of the Ho Chi Minh City Command - informed about the progress of searching for and repatriating martyrs' remains at Le Thi Rieng Park and the work of collecting clues related to soldiers who sacrificed in the Tan Son Nhat airport battle during Tet Mau Than 1968.
According to Major General Nguyen Thanh Trung, the search at Le Thi Rieng Park is being implemented drastically according to the motto "easy to do first, difficult to do later", ensuring science, meticulousness and rigor.
To date, functional forces have found 11 sets of martyrs' remains. Among them, 6 sets of remains have artifacts and papers, and 5 sets do not have artifacts or papers to serve the identification.
Through the excavation process, functional forces determined that this area has two layers of burial. The first layer is main force units participating in the Tet Offensive in 1968, the second layer is Saigon Special Forces soldiers.
To facilitate the identification of identities as well as the identification of combat unit codes, the Ho Chi Minh City Command has reported to the Steering Committee of Military Region 7 and the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee. After being approved, the search is deployed in layers, completing this layer before continuing the next layer to ensure accuracy.
In parallel with the excavation work, the Ho Chi Minh City Command coordinated with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology to take DNA samples from martyrs' remains, and at the same time coordinated with units in Tay Ninh to collect DNA samples of relatives of martyrs who sacrificed in the period 1965 - 1969 for comparison.
When we have DNA samples from martyrs' remains, we will compare them with DNA samples of relatives. This is an important basis for identifying martyrs" - Major General Nguyen Thanh Trung said.
Currently, the Ho Chi Minh City Command is coordinating with the University of Science and the University of Technology to continue surveying and searching at groove No. 2, and at the same time receive more information about other grooves in the Le Thi Rieng Park area.
In addition to searching at Le Thi Rieng Park, the Ho Chi Minh City Command continues to call on witnesses and relatives of martyrs to provide information about the two mass graves of soldiers who sacrificed in the Tan Son Nhat airport battle on the 1st and 2nd days of Tet Mau Than in 1968.
To date, the unit has received more than 50 calls and messages providing valuable information to serve verification and search work.
Notably, the information sources not only come from Ho Chi Minh City but also from Lam Dong, Binh Thuan and many other localities. The Ho Chi Minh City Command is summarizing, comparing dossiers, conducting field surveys and reporting to the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee and Military Region 7 to develop a plan to continue searching and repatriating in the coming time.
