Headlines       Vol. 2 Issue 1-2

May 7- May 21 , 1999

A mass grave of Chinese soldiers found in Assam A month after the discovery of a World War II cemetery of Chinese soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh, another grave of 200 soldiers has been found in Assam recently. Rows of graves with epitaphs in mandarin Chinese were discovered by villagers at Longtong in Assam. Villagers discovered the cemetery in the dense forests along the Stillwell Road built by the allied forces to link Burma to China. It is learnt that paramilitary forces will soon begin clearing the shrubs and vegetation around the graves, which are covered with concrete slabs and surrounded by a brick wall.Longtong is 550 kilometers east of Guwahati. The epitaphs indicate the soldiers belonged to the Second Battalion of the Independent Engineers of the Chinese Army and were from the Hopeh province. Earlier, villagers in the neighboring State of Arunachal Pradesh that borders China discovered the graves of some 1,200 Chinese soldiers. “We want the Chinese authorities to send archaeological experts to find out more about the soldiers,” said Setong Sens, a member of Arunachal Pradesh Assembly and a native of the district where the graves were found. “We want to convert this cemetery into a war memorial so that relatives of the dead can come and pay homage, “ he said. Chinese troops and allied forces built the 470-kilometer Stillwell Road under the supervision of US army general Joseph Stillwell during World War II. The road runs from Assam into Myanmar, where it joins the Burma Road into China's Yunan province.

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