South Korea and the United States began an annual project Monday to jointly search for the remains of American soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul’s defense ministry said.
The four-week project between the ministry’s Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification and the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) will take place in five locations across the country, including the eastern county of Pyeongchang.
KIA stands for killed in action, while POW and MIA are acronyms for prisoners of war and missing in action, respectively.
The two sides have regularly conducted joint searches for the remains of missing Americans after signing an agreement for joint war remains excavations in 2011.
This year, South Korean and U.S. officials will visit the central city of Mungyeong, where a U.S. F-51D fighter jet is presumed to have crashed during the war, among sites where U.S. troops are suspected to have been killed.
In September, the allies plan to conduct an underwater search for U.S. aircraft
wreckage and the remains of pilots in waters off Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
More than 1.7 million U.S. troops served in the Korean theater of operations during the Korean War, with more than 36,000 being killed, according to data from the U.N. Command.
Nearly 7,500 Americans still remain unaccounted for from the three-year conflict, according to the DPAA.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
