Page 300 - 2020 Defence White Paper

Recovering the remains at Arrowhead Hill Prime Minister visiting the excavation site in DMZ

Furthermore in 2019, recovery and family outreach personnel considerably
increased . The Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Korean War KIA Remains
28)
Recovery was also revised to include provisions to pay prescribed rewards to those
29)
participating in DNA samples collection and also to the families when the remains
have been identified. Consequently, DNA sampling more than doubled since 2018.
In December 2020, the MND completed the construction of the Identification
Center which will improve remains management and the systematic and scientific
process of identification.

[Chart 7-12] Remains Recovered by Year
(As of December 2019, unit: sets)
2000-
Category Total 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
2010
Remains
recovered 12,181 5,599 1,387 1,041 736 913 622 429 448 376 630
ROK military
28) personnel and 10,607 4,705 1,300 989 671 809 561 387 420 362 403
Excavation personnel was police officers
increased from 8 teams to
12 teams, and personnel * Cumulative total of recovered remains: 12,181 sets in total / including 261 sets of remains found in DMZ (Arrowhead Hill).

inquiring with bereaved ** The recovery results for 2019 are subject to change depending on the final identification results.
families was increased from
1 team to 4 teams.
29) [Chart 7-13] DNA Sampling of Bereaved Families and Identification of KIAs during
A reward of KRW 10,000 Korean War
is given to each sample (As of December 2019, unit: cases, persons)
provider, KRW 100,000 is 2000-
awarded to a person who Category Total 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
is found to be a bereaved
family member, and KRW DNA
10 million is given for sampling 53,364 13,572 4,252 4,765 4,005 2,645 2,921 4,041 4,072 4,155 8,936
those who have provided
samples and once the Identity
identity of the excavated verification 139 61 7 11 5 17 8 9 9 4 8
remains is verified.
(Article 12 of the Act on the
Excavation of the Remains
of Soldiers Killed in the
Korean War and attached The MND is also redoubling efforts on remains recovery international cooperation.
Table 3 of its Enforcement
Decree) Annual meetings and joint remains recovery is conducted in cooperation with the

298 2020 Defense White Paper