North Korea returned the purported remains of 55 American troops who served in the Korean War — exactly 65 years since the conflict’s de facto end.
According to United Nations Command, one of the military organizations charged with keeping peace on the peninsula, a C-17 plane picked up the cases of the remains in Wonson, North Korea, and flew them to Osan Air Base in South Korea.
An honor guard met the cases when they landed, and each was wrapped in the UN’s flag, the flag under which US troops fought during the war. The boxes were individually placed in six vans.
“It was a successful mission following extensive coordination,” Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, who leads US and UN troops in South Korea, said in a statement. “Now, we will prepare to honor our fallen before they continue on their journey home.”
The US military still has to run an extensive DNA verification process on the remains to ensure they correspond with missing Americans. The cases will fly to Hawaii to undergo processing by the Pentagon agency charged with accounting for prisoners of war and troops missing in action.
