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A Study on the Condition of POW Camps in North Korea and the Excavating Possibilities of the ROK POWs' Deads during the Korean War

Sung Hun Cho 1

1군사편찬연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article is to study focusing on the location of POW camps, size of war deads in the camps, and their burial places in order to progress the projects of excavating ROK POWs' deads during the Korean War (1950-1953). In the dimension of a national duty saying that “the people who fought for the country, the country will secure them for good", it is desirable thing that war deads as well as still living people in the ROK POWs should be return home country. But the North Korea (NK) will insist that the war deads in the camps already repatriated. If the Republic of Korea (ROK) Government will insist that the war deads in the camps will be excavated, NK will be deny the same way as the surviving people. When the POWs' deads exchange between the United Nations (UN) side and the Communist side right after the Armistice, NK repatriated 606 war deads among ROK POWs deads in a little scale. Although the war deads increased during ‘death march' or in the camps, they must be returned a part of those war deads. Another distinguished reason of a small scale of war deads' exchange, NK made greatly a small size of 10,000 for a total POWs and complemented the POWs to the NKPA and NK citizens, which was different from the size of 100,000 POWs of the ROK and UN which was announced by the NK General Command in June 1951. And so, many war deads died in the camps and buried in the NK Area, who were not repatriated are still exist probably. Thus, in order to excavate the ROK POWs' deads, the Byeogdong POWs Camp, Cheonma POWs Camp, etc. where were known as camps with so many ROK POWs and died those places will be needed in priority. In case of US war deads' excavation, the places such as Unsan, Jangjinho areas where were the many US casualties were occurred. In the future, if it will become a better situation between the NK and ROK relationship, and more progress will make good results about the excavation of ROK POWs' Camp deads, we will need to find information exchange and field investigation about finding the places of POWs where were not confirmed, number of war deads and burial places, and also need to extend the projects of excavation about POWs deads.

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