China and South Korea held a handover ceremony on Wednesday morning at Incheon International Airport for the remains of 12 Chinese People's Volunteers soldiers killed in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953), along with 146 personal effects.
A Chinese Air Force Y-20B large transport aircraft carried the remains to Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, home to the Chinese People's Volunteers martyrs' cemetery. This marked the first deployment of the Y-20B for repatriation duties, with the aircraft escorted by four J-20 fighter jets upon re-entering Chinese airspace.
China's Ministry of Veterans Affairs stated that this is the 13th such repatriation under the handover agreement between the two countries. Since 2014, the remains of 1,011 soldiers have been returned from the Republic of Korea. China has intensified efforts to identify martyrs' remains, including creating a DNA database for martyrs and their relatives to aid families in finding missing loved ones.
During the war, China sent 2.9 million Chinese People's Volunteers to aid the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, of whom more than 360,000 were killed or injured.
