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Enshrinement ceremony held for unidentified Korean War remains excavated in 2025

Published: 15 Dec. 2025, 11:41

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, center, and top government officials attend an enshrinement ceremony for unidentified Korean War remains at the Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul on Dec. 15. [YONHAP]

The government on Monday held a joint enshrinement ceremony for the remains of 141 unidentified soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The ceremony took place at the Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul, presided over by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok and attended by Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and other senior government and military officials, according to the Defense Ministry.

The enshrined sets were excavated at 34 former Korean War battlefield sites across the country between March and November this year, the ministry said.

Among them were 25 sets of remains excavated from White Horse Ridge in Cheorwon, Gangwon, as the government resumed the project on the South's side of the demilitarized zone, separating the two Koreas, for the first time in three years in October.

The unidentified remains will be kept at the ministry's Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification based at the national cemetery until their identities are confirmed and they are returned to their families. KIA stands for killed in action.

Since the ministry launched the excavation project for Korean War remains in 2000, it has excavated some 11,000 sets of remains and confirmed the identities of 268 of them.

Yonhap