HO CHI MINH CITY, Oct 14 — Vietnam held funeral rites for more than 700 of its war dead today, unearthed in a major push to identify those missing from decades of conflict with France and the United States.
Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, some holding white flowers or praying as buses carrying terracotta caskets covered by Vietnam’s national flag moved in procession to a cemetery for fallen soldiers on the outskirts of the city.
The 731 sets of remains, taken from individual and mass graves of fighters killed when US-backed forces crushed an uprising by communists in 1968, were exhumed from a tree-shaded public park, according to the military.
Le Ngoc Mai Uyen was a frequent visitor to the park named after her grandmother, revolutionary fighter Le Thi Rieng, before she realised her relative’s body may be buried there.
