PARIS: France is to repatriate from Vietnam the bodies of six soldiers who died in Dien Bien Phu, the country’s last stand in Indochina.

Dien Bien Phu, in northern Vietnam, was the site of an epic battle against Vietnamese communist forces in 1954 that spelt the end of France’s colonial empire in Indochina.

Vietnamese fighters hemmed in French forces, equipped with superior weapons, and bombarded them with heavy artillery.

The ferocious battle in the rugged, remote valley killed thousands of soldiers on both sides in two months. The existence of the six bodies, “conserved in three different locations”, had been reported to the Fre­nch embassy in Viet­nam in 2012, 2021 and 2022, the defence ministry said.

The Vietnamese autho­rities approved the repatriation on March 25, and the bodies were exhumed the following day, it said.

Once back in France, experts will have to study the remains to try to establish the identities of five of them and confirm the identity of a sixth buried with a name, the ministry said.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2024