Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and delegates pressed the button to launch the Gene Bank MoLISA Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that our country has 1.2 million martyrs who fell in the war, of which hundreds of thousands of martyrs have not been gathered or identified; including more than 23,000 remains of martyrs remaining on the battlefield.

Therefore, for many years, the work of collecting and identifying the remains of martyrs has always been given special attention and priority by the Party and State.

In 2013, the Prime Minister approved two projects related to gathering and verifying the remains and identities of martyrs, including: Project to search and collect the remains of martyrs from now until 2020 and the following years (Project 1237) implemented by the Ministry of National Defense; and Project to identify martyrs' remains with missing information (Project 150) implemented by the MoLISA.

According to Minister Dao Ngoc Dung, Project 150 is implemented mainly with DNA testing and evidence methods.

The DNA assessment method has been deployed with nearly 10,000 samples of martyrs' remains and more than 3,000 biological samples of martyrs' relatives. As a result, more than 1,000 identities of martyrs were compared and matched to inform the martyrs' relatives.

Implementing the plan to search and gather martyrs' remains and identify the remains of martyrs lacking information by 2030 and rely on 25,000 DNA data of martyrs' remains and relatives collected, MoLISA in coordination with the Ministry of Public Security proposed the Government to build a Gene Bank (DNA) of martyrs whose information and relatives have not yet been identified.

“The Gene Bank not only opens up hope for more than 300,000 families of people with meritorious service, but also the hope of the entire Party and people of the country that in the not too distant future, all the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of protecting the Fatherland will be gathered and its identity determined” – the Minister added./.