Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Thị Thanh Trà at the meeting in Hà Nội on Thursday. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vân

HÀ NỘI — Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Thị Thanh Trà has ordered the completion of a comprehensive database covering fallen soldiers, their graves, cemeteries and records by the end of this year.

Trà, who is also head of the National Steering Committee for the Search, Collection and Identification of Martyrs’ Remains, made the request at a meeting in Hà Nội on Thursday to review the 500-day campaign and set urgent tasks for the coming time.

Major General Đoàn Quang Hòa, chief of the committee’s office, said authorities have collected 1,715 sets of remains, or 24.5 per cent of the target, since March 15.

Of those, 691 sets were recovered in Việt Nam, 174 in Laos and 850 in Cambodia. A total of 13 mass graves were found, including five in Tuyên Quang and eight at Lê Thị Riêng Park in HCM City.

Localities have accelerated the collection and sampling, processing an average of 2,000-3,000 samples a day. Samples have been taken from 124,762 graves, or 58.4 per cent of the target; 86,183 graves were eligible for sampling and 38,579 were not.

Nine localities have finished sampling, including Tuyên Quang, Lai Châu, Sơn La, Lào Cai, Quảng Ninh, Ninh Bình, Hà Tĩnh, Huế and Lâm Đồng. Meanwhike, Khánh Hòa, Tây Ninh, HCM City and Đồng Nai have completed more than 90 per cent of the work.

Separately, authorities have cleared mines and unexploded ordnance from nearly 11,794ha of a planned 22,725ha, or 51.9 per cent of the target.

In the core Vị Xuyên area of Tuyên Quang, more than 4,075ha of 4,460ha have been cleared, or 91.39 per cent. The work is set for completion in August to support the search and collection efforts.

At Lê Thị Riêng Park in HCM City’s Hòa Hưng Ward, 268 sets of remains were discovered and collected from June 23 – August 11, said Major General Nguyễn Thành Trung, Political Commissar of the HCM City’s High Command.

That includes 235 individual remains and 33 sets from eight mass graves, with artifacts found alongside 158 sets.

Early results at the park show that an integrated approach is working, combining domestic and foreign archival records, historical witnesses, ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity technology, geophysical surveys, DNA testing, digital transformation and database development, and military historical analysis.

The operation marks the first large-scale use of a modern search model in a major urban area and could serve as a template for other localities nationwide. — VNA/VNS