The remains of more than 800 South Korean soldiers killed in action during the 1950-53 Korean War were enshrined at a national cemetery in Seoul on Thursday, the government said.

A total of 818 troops recovered this year in 27 areas across the country were laid to rest in a ceremony at the Seoul National Cemetery, according to the Prime Minister's Secretariat. The bodies will then go through an identification process.

The government has held the symbolic ceremony on a yearly basis to enshrine fallen soldiers whose bodies were recovered but have yet to be identified.

Since 2000 when the defense ministry launched a project of finding the remains of the war dead, a total of 9,679 bodies were recovered and 8,477 of them were found to have been service personnel, according to the Prime Minister's Secretariat.

So far, the government has confirmed the identity of 101 remains and returned them to their loved ones, it noted.

"I'd like to pay my respects to the fallen heroes who sacrificed themselves for the homeland," Prime Minister Chung Hong-won said, instructing officials to push more proactively for the excavation project to relieve the pain of the bereaved families. (Yonhap)