South Korea handed over the remains at a ceremony at Incheon airport outside Seoul, and a Chinese military transport plane flew them to Shenyang, a north-eastern Chinese city near the North Korean border.
The handing over ceremony takes place at Incheon International Airport in South Korea (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)
Chinese soldiers fought on the North Korean side against US-led forces in the South during the war on the Korean Peninsula.
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Most of the 117 remains were found in the Demilitarised Zone that separates North and South Korea. It was the seventh annual repatriation, and the largest since the 437 returned in the first event in 2014. In all, the remains of 716 Chinese soldiers have been sent back.
This year’s return, originally planned for the spring, was postponed for several months because of the spread of Covid-19.
