Accordingly, MR2’s Search and Collection Team is one of the eight teams performing the tasks of searching and collecting remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and advisors in Laos’ provinces and cities. Over the past three decades, the team has found and gathered 1,835 sets of remains of Vietnamese martyrs, of which 387 sets were identified.
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Major General Nguyen Hong Thai speaks at the event. |
Meanwhile, the team has received hundreds of martyrs’ relatives, many of whom have been to Laos to seek and verify information about martyrs, and responded to hundreds of letters to provide information about martyrs and martyrs' graves.
Speaking at the event, Major General Pham Hong Thai, MR2’s Deputy Political Commissar and Head of Steering Committee 515, praised the team’s obtained achievements over the past time, and thanked the Lao Government’s Special Working Committee, the Vietnamese and Lao people in six Northern provinces of Laos, as well as military units stationed in Laos’ Oudomxay and Vietnam’s Dien Bien provinces for their sincere support for the team’s work.
For his part, Onkeo Unnalom, Vice Chairman of Oudomxay province, expressed his gratitude towards Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and advisors who laid down their lives for the international revolutionary cause, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Lao military and people to fight for national independence and freedom.
Also, he asked the authorities and people of the six Northern provinces of Laos to create all favorable conditions for the team to successfully complete the task of verifying, searching, and collecting remains of Vietnamese soldiers and advisors who performed noble international missions and sacrificed their lives during wartime in the six Northern provinces of Laos.
On the occasion, the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense and the authority of Oudomxay province presented a certificate of merit to the team in recognition of its achievements over the past time.
On June 17, 1994, the Search and Collection Team of Military Region 2 was established under the directive of the Minister of National Defense and the minutes signed by the Vietnam and Laos Inter-Governmental Committees on the search, collection, and repatriation of the remains of the Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and advisors fallen in Laos during wartime.
The key task of the team was surveying, clarifying, searching and repatriating martyrs’ remains in the six Northern Lao localities of Oudomxay, Luang Namtha, Bokeo, Luang Prabang, Phongsaly, and Xayaboury.
Source: VNA
Translated by Quynh Oanh