The Pentagon announced earlier this month that it had given up hope on resuming joint U.S.-North Korean searches for remains this year amid a diplomatic stalemate over efforts to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
But South Korea has pushed forward with efforts to recover the remains of troops killed in the DMZ during the 1950-53 war, which ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.
The search area known as Arrowhead Ridge, or Hill 281, was the site of fierce battles as American, French and South Korean soldiers fought to repel Chinese forces trying to invade from the North. But it has long been in the no-go buffer zone that has been lined with barbed wire and land mines since the war ended.
In the fall, the two Koreas began removing land mines to allow searches for remains in the area as part of efforts to improve bilateral relations in parallel with U.S.-North Korean nuclear talks, which have deadlocked.
Image source stripes.com
Seoul unilaterally resumed excavations on April 1, finding five pieces of U.S. military body armor, 14 Chinese gas masks and a dog tag belonging to a French soldier, the ministry said, releasing a photo of what appears to be an American soldier's bulletproof vest.
Search crews with the defense ministry's agency for killed in action recovery and identification, known as MAKRI, found 101 bone fragments this week, bringing the total to 321, it said. Officials said the number of people found has yet to be determined, pending DNA analysis.
More than 7,600 American troops remain missing from the war, with 5,300 believed lost in the North, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. More than 133,000 South Koreans are still unaccounted for, officials have said.
Source: Military.com
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