Need to soon build a gene bank for martyrs

On October 27, the Ho Chi Minh City Association for Supporting Families of Martyrs held a seminar on “Searching, collecting, adjusting, and storing information on martyrs; procedures for moving graves and remains of martyrs” to find effective solutions for providing spiritual support to martyrs’ families.

Colonel Le Thanh Song, Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Association for Supporting Families of Martyrs, said that the work of collecting martyrs' remains, searching for and correcting martyrs' information, completing cemeteries, and building memorial areas and temples to honor their achievements after the country's reunification has been carried out synchronously, but many remains have not been collected in cemeteries.

"There are still over 200,000 martyrs whose remains have not been found, 300,000 martyrs have been gathered in martyr cemeteries but their identities have not been determined, and many martyrs' graves have information but it is incomplete or inaccurate," said Colonel Song.

TP.HCM: Cần sớm xây dựng ngân hàng gene liệt sĩ - Ảnh 1. — Colonel Le Thanh Song, Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Association for Supporting Families of Martyrs, proposed establishing a gene bank to support the process of collecting martyrs' remains.

Colonel Song proposed to establish a martyrs’ gene bank soon, and organize the collection of martyrs’ relatives’ genes, because according to Mr. Song, if not collected soon, in 5-7 years there will be no one left to collect the remains because the martyrs’ relatives are old. “Finding martyrs’ remains is difficult, and it is increasingly difficult to find qualified samples, but finding relatives to collect genes will be even more difficult,” Colonel Song expressed.

Also at the discussion, Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy Nga, Deputy Head of the Department of Meritorious People, Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Ho Chi Minh City, said that in Ho Chi Minh City, there are currently 7 martyr cemeteries with nearly 28,000 martyrs' graves, including 19 mass graves, about 14,000 graves with full information, more than 7,000 graves with missing information and nearly 6,000 graves with unidentified information.

TP.HCM: Cần sớm xây dựng ngân hàng gene liệt sĩ - Ảnh 2. — Ho Chi Minh City Association for Supporting Families of Martyrs signed an agreement to coordinate activities in searching for martyrs' graves, collecting, adjusting, and storing martyrs' information.

Ms. Nga said that identifying the remains of martyrs still faces many difficulties because information on tombstones is lost over time, recorded information is lost due to war, and the work of archiving, managing, and handing over martyrs' records and graves is still inadequate and limited...

In particular, the remains were buried for a long time, most of them were not intact, were highly decomposed, and moved several times, greatly affecting their quality, causing difficulties in the process of taking biological samples for analysis and DNA identification.

In the coming time, the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Ho Chi Minh City will continue to promote the verification, standardization of information, and completion of data on martyrs, martyrs' graves, and martyrs' relatives; promote propaganda to maximize the mobilization of information sources on martyrs and martyrs' remains from the people; apply information technology in the activities of reviewing and completing the list of martyrs.

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