An excavation project will start in the southwestern South Korean city of Gwangju early next week to search for the remains of those who went missing during the city's pro-democracy uprising in 1980, a foundation representing the victims said Monday.

A joint team of experts from the government and the May 18 Memorial Foundation plan to dig at a site in South Jeolla Province, where a prison was located and dozens of the missing victims are believed to have been secretly buried during the bloody crackdown 37 years ago, the foundation said.

Thousand of Gwangju citizens rose up against the military junta led by Gen. Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power in a coup, following the assassination of his mentor, President Park Chung-hee, in 1979.

The junta sent tank-led paratroopers to ruthlessly quell the nine-day revolt. More than 200 people were killed and 1,800 wounded, with many still unaccounted for.

The site is 3 to 5 meters wide and 117 meters long and is now covered in asphalt. There is a parking lot and a tennis court nearby. The excavation team plans to remove the weeds and asphalt and dig as deep as 30 centimeters into the ground.

The team will also use ground-penetrating radar that can reach depths of up to 10 meters, the foundation added.

Calls for a fresh investigation into the massacre have been strong, but moves were tepid under the two previous conservative governments. President Moon Jae-in, who took office in May, has promised to get to the truth and has ordered a special probe into the case.

The excavation team chose the old prison site based on the testimony from a then-major in an airborne brigade in charge of the crackdown. He confessed to burying some 12 bodies in the farm that was in the facility. A couple of people who were inmates at the time have also told the foundation they witnessed bodies being disposed there.

Any remains they find at the site will be analyzed for DNA comparison with the samples collected from 295 families of the missing, the foundation said.

Source : Yonhap