A national portal on martyrs, their graves and cemeteries will be put into official operation on 27 July to mark the 71^st anniversary of the War Invalids and Martyrs’ Day. 

A post office employee tooking photos of graves in the Hoa Tien Commune Martyrs’ Cemetery

The intention is to facilitate the public’s access to relevant information, and search for the graves of their relatives who are heroic martyrs laying down their lives for the nation’s re-unification.

According to Minister for the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) Dao Ngoc Dung, database of martyrs and their graves has been compiled on paper by the ministry for many years. However, there haven’t been any ways to identify thousands of graves that lack information.

In order to address this issue, following the instructions from MoLISA, the departments of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs in localities nationwide are required to work closely with the Viet Nam Post Corporation (VNPost) to collect data about war martyrs and their graves, and cemeteries across the country for the purpose of building the national portal.

The post office employees are in charge of taking photos of graves at war martyrs’ cemeteries nationwide. Accordingly, the image and information about the graves will be sent to the national portal.

By using information technology, the information, images and coordinates of each grave will then be compared and connected with the existing database of MoLISA, and then made available on the national portal.

Currently, employees from the Da Nang Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, and the city’s Post Office are making a joint effort to collect information on 20 martyrs’ cemeteries which are home to a combined total of about 9,500 martyrs’ graves.

Between August 2018 and late 2019, more data on the national portal will be updated to ensure accuracy.

According to Mr Nguyen Van Hien, a government employee in charge of labour, war invalids and social affairs in Hoa Vang District’s Hoa Tien Commune, 280 graves at the commune-level cemetery still remain unidentified.

In the coming time, biological samples for AND testing from the remains of these unknown martyrs will be collected in a bid to find genetic relatives of these fallen soldiers.

Mr Thai Dinh Hoang, the Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs underlined the great significance of the national portal on martyrs, their graves and cemeteries in helping martyrs’ relatives save time, travel costs and physical efforts for finding their loved ones’ remains.

According to MoLISA, Viet Nam has more than 9 million revolution contributors in total, including 1.2 million fallen soldiers, 127,000 Heroic Mothers, and 800,000 war invalids.

Over the past 5 years, over 75,000 sets of remains of fallen soldiers have been found and reburied. Of the total, 16,600 sets of remains were repatriated from Laos, and 15,100 sets brought back from Cambodia.

However, more than 300,000 martyrs’ remains have been reburied in cemeteries nationwide but still lack information. Meanwhile, the remains of over 200,000 other martyrs haven’t been found.

The Party and State’s preferential policies have benefited 95.75% of the revolution contributors. Caring for revolution contributors is an important and frequent political task of the Party and State.