U.S. to excavate remains of American soldiers fallen in Korean War

By Sam Kim
SEOUL, May 6 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. military agency overseeing the identification
of wartime casualties said Wednesday it will start excavating the remains of
American soldiers fallen during the Korean War next week near the inter-Korean
border.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) said in a statement it plans to send
a 12-member team to two South Korean sites near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to
conduct the mission starting Sunday.
"The mission is planned in order to achieve the fullest possible accounting of
Americans missing in action as a result of operations" during the 1950-53
conflict that ended in a truce, it said.
Over 8,100 Americans remain unaccounted for from the war in which the U.S. fought
on the South Korean side, according to the JPAC. Some 2,000 of them are believed
to be buried inside the DMZ, a 4-kilometer-wide buffer separating the two Koreas.
JPAC officials worked on the North Korean side of the border until 2005, when
tension spiked between the sides over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and
forced the team to withdraw.
The latest group will include a forensic anthropologist, linguists, a medic and
other experts, according to the statement released through the U.S. Forces Korea,
which has 28,500 troops here.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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