Joint Investigation Team Formed to Locate Families of Fallen Soldiers

On the 24th, a day before the 71st anniversary of the Korean War, North Korean defectors and university students from a North Korean human rights activity club are volunteering at the war dead cemetery in the National Seoul Memorial Cemetery in Dongjak-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] A joint investigation team will be formed to find the families of about 2,000 soldiers whose deaths in action or honorable deaths have not been officially notified. This is because the military alone lacks the authority to access personal information needed to verify the addresses of the families.

On the 15th, the Ministry of National Defense, together with the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs and the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, established the "Special Investigation Team to Find Families of Soldiers Killed or Honorable Deaths" and decided to locate the families of soldiers who died during military service through ex officio reexamination conducted in 1996?1997.

The military changed the death classification to killed in action or honorable death for 9,756 soldiers who died during military service through the ex officio reexamination in 1996?1997. Among them, notifications of death in action or honorable death were made to the families of about 7,000 soldiers through efforts to find families from 1999 to 2014, but 2,048 remain unlocated due to reasons such as unconfirmed addresses.

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