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The Essential: From Our Own Correspondent: War Graves in South Korea

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From Our Own Correspondent: War Graves in South Korea

07/04/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - The Essential, From Our Own Correspondent: War Graves in South Korea

BBC Seoul correspondent Steve Evans reflects on the remains of the 1950s Korean War

BBC Seoul correspondent Steve Evans reflects on the political and human remains left by the 1950s Korean War - and why attitudes to them are so different in China and North Korea

In a recent ceremony (pictured above), South Korea and China honoured the remains of Chinese soldiers who fought and died in the Korean War of the 1950s. These bodies are to be taken back to China and buried there. Yet relations with North Korea, just over the border, are more fractious - and Pyongyang, too, left tens of thousands of dead in the South. The remains of those men are very unlikely to be repatriated any time soon. BBC Seoul correspondent Steve Evans reflects on the political and human remains left by the Korean war - and why attitudes to it are so different in China and North Korea today. 


Photo: Chinese honor guards salute caskets containing the remains of Chinese soldiers with Chinese national flags during a handing over ceremony of the remains at the Incheon International Airport, March 31, 2016. The coffins carry the remains of 36 soldiers - excavated by South Korea's Defence Ministry from March to November last year - which were flown  to the northeastern city of Shenyang, where China has a state cemetery for its war dead. / AFP / POOL / KIM HONG-JI

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