Korea official searches abroad for independence fighters' graves

A South Korean veterans ministry specialist has spent 14 years locating the overseas graves of Korean independence fighters and helping return some remains to national cemeteries in Korea, The Korea Times reported.

The work highlights South Korea’s continuing effort to account for independence activists who died abroad after fighting Japanese colonial rule. The Korea Times article did not cite a direct Orange County connection.

Ahn Jun-beom, 50, a specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, has located 161 overseas graves of independence fighters over the past 14 years, according to The Korea Times. The remains of eight fighters found through his work have been repatriated to Korea.

The report described the Nov. 15, 2022, return of Lee Han-ho’s remains at Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1. Lee left Korea in 1915, joined Maenghodan in China’s Jiandao region, took part in a March 1 Independence Movement demonstration in 1919, later moved through Russia and Shanghai and died in Switzerland in September 1960.

Ahn handled the arrangements to bring Lee’s remains from Switzerland to a national cemetery in Korea, The Korea Times reported. Lee’s remains returned 107 years after he left Korea and 62 years after his death.

Ahn prepares for overseas trips by reviewing archives, academic papers and memoirs, arranging travel, meeting families and local organizations, coordinating with diplomatic missions, checking grave conditions and consulting families, according to The Korea Times. He averages five or six overseas business trips each year, some lasting more than 10 days, after three to five months of preparation.

"The most rewarding moment is when the remains of an independence fighter arrive safely in Korea and enter the arrivals hall. If the soul exists, I think he might have felt that all the blood, sweat and tears he shed for the independence movement in a foreign land had been worthwhile," Ahn Jun-beom, specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, told Hankook Ilbo in an interview cited by The Korea Times.

Three more independence fighters buried in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the United States are scheduled to be repatriated in November, The Korea Times reported. Ahn said family and local community wishes are important before remains are moved, saying, "Let's bring them home to Korea."

According to The Korea Times, only four surviving independence fighters remain in Korea after Lee Ha-jeon, described as the last surviving overseas-based independence fighter, died in the United States on Feb. 4, 2026, at age 105.