At the reception, Mr Trong said the Party and State are always grateful to the lofty sacrifices and the great contributions to the nation by local people of Tam Ky town during the past two resistance wars for national independence. He praised local Party and administrative committees, fatherland front chapters and mass organisations for their efforts to care for social policy beneficiaries.

Mr Trong expressed wish that heroic Vietnamese mothers, revolutionary veterans, and war prisoners and invalids will continue to uphold revolutionary traditions and encourage younger generations to make further contributions to local development.

The same day, the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai held a ceremony to rebury the remains of 29 fallen soldiers at the provincial cemetery.

The remains were found and collected by the provincial Military Command during their search in Tay Son ward, Pleiku city from July 20-24. They were revolutionary soldiers who had been imprisoned and tortured brutally before the Mau Than General Offensive in 1968.

On this occasion, the Command of Military Zone 9 in the Mekong delta province of Dong Thap reburied the remains of 109 unknown fallen soldiers at the Tam Nong district cemetery.

A reburial ceremony for the remains of 181 volunteer soldiers was also held in Tinh Bien district, An Giang province.