More than five decades after the war ended, efforts to bring fallen heroes home remain a top priority for the nation. To date, it is estimated that there are still 175,000 remains unfound and another 300,000 unidentified. In response to this challenge, the government has officially initiated an intensive 500-day campaign, running from March 15, 2026, to July 27, 2027, to fulfill this humanitarian mandate.
This campaign is a national movement involving cross-sector coordination, from the military and police to health institutions. The program is not just an administrative task, but a manifestation of the moral value "when drinking water, remember the source," emphasizing the state's responsibility toward the generation that sacrificed for independence.
One of the key breakthroughs in this initiative is the application of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology using the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) method. Associate Professor Dr. Phi Quyet Tien from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology explained that this technology is capable of analyzing DNA fragments that have severely degraded due to extreme environmental conditions. Compared to conventional mitochondrial DNA methods, the NGS-SNP technique allows for more accurate genetic matching, even with more distant relatives.
So far, the effectiveness of this collaboration has begun to yield tangible results. The Ministry of Defense has deployed dozens of search teams domestically and abroad, successfully repatriating thousands of remains. At the same time, the collection of over 93,000 biological samples from martyrs' families continues to be accelerated for synchronization into a unified national database.
With the support of cutting-edge technology and a firm political commitment, the government is optimistic that thousands of families who have waited decades for the return of their loved ones will soon see a glimmer of hope. Every genetic sample stored in the database is not just data, but hope for many families to end their long wait.
