BEIJING -- China's Ministry of Veterans Affairs on Sunday announced that it has confirmed the identities of eight martyrs whose remains were found in the Ngari prefecture of the country's southwestern Xizang autonomous region last year.

Xi Yufeng, the ministry official in charge of the recovery of martyrs' remains, said at a press conference that a national search team and a DNA lab that identifies martyrs' remains have been working together since 2023 to recover and identify the eight sets of remains in Ngari.

It was the first time a national search team has worked in a high-altitude environment since China officially established these teams in 2022, according to the ministry.

The ministry also worked on facial reconstruction with forensic experts at Shanghai's Fudan University.

At a press conference earlier this month, it announced that it had located living family members of over 60,000 martyrs through an online service, which collects inquiries from the public.