Incense sticks are placed in a monument to honor the victims of the massacre in Vietnam.
Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP via Getty Images
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Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP via Getty Images
Incense sticks are placed in a monument to honor the victims of the massacre in Vietnam.
Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP via Getty Images
SEOUL — A South Korean court has ordered the government to compensate survivors of a massacre carried out by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War. It is the first time that a court has found the southern government responsible for such atrocities.
Nguyen Thi Thanh was 7 in 1968 when she says South Korean marines killed five members of her family and shot her in the stomach.
According to US military documents and survivors, the marines killed more than 70 civilians and wounded 20 in two villages in Quang Nam province.
This happened weeks before the My Lai massacre, carried out by American troops, further south.
Nguyen Thi Thanh asked the South Korean government in 2020 for almost $24,000. The court rejected the government’s argument that Vietnam guerrillas they were mixed with the locals.
South Korea sent more than 300,000 troops to fight in Vietnam, the largest contingent of any US ally.
This originally appeared on NPR News.
