Over the past couple of years, another 29 sets of remains of April 3rd Incident victims have been positively identified. Hundreds more bodies remain to be ID'd, but officials say they don’t have enough funding for the work. Joseph Kim reports.

This is the Jeju April 3rd Peace Park.

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Jeju April 3rd Peace Park

The remains of 400 bodies exhumed at the Jeju International Airport and other locations on the island from 2006 through 2011 are placed here.

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Another 29 bodies identified with DNA testing

Among the 400 unknown bodies, 29 have been identified recently, following three bodies identified in 2016.

The identified remains were discovered at the northwestern and northeastern areas of the north and south runway of the Jeju International Airport which is closed as it was suspected that the area was a mass grave for hundreds of people killed during the April 3rd Incident.

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22 executed in 1949, 6 in 1950

Among those identified, twenty two were executed at a court-martial in 1949 and six were subjects of preventive custody and executed by soldiers in 1950. And the remaining one is presumed to be a victim who was executed.

Up to now, 121 bodies have been identified.

INTERVIEW
Lee Ji-hoon / Secretary general, Jeju April 3rd Peace Foundation
Seoul National University’s Medical Research Center performed single nucleotide polymorphism testing on 279 bodies this year. A total of 121 bodies have been identified.
인터뷰)이지훈 제주 4·3 평화재단 사무처장
올해 같은 경우 279구에 대한 유해발굴에 대한 유전자 감식 SNP방식으로 서울대학교 법의학 연구소에서 했고, 금년 포함해서 총 121분의 유족을 찾게 됐습니다.

But the identification work has long way to go.

Still, significant number of retrieved bodies are waiting for their turn in a long queue.

279 bodies await identification.

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Seoul has not offered full support for identification work

As the identification works require a huge budget, the province needs Seoul’s support.

1.2 billion won was spent for the identification work this year.

[Reporter] Joseph Kim
[Camera] Kim Seung-cheol

The province asked for 2.2 billion won to preserve the April 3rd Incident remains and excavation works for the year of 2020. But Seoul has allocated only 900 million won for the work.

Joseph Kim, KCTV