A number of Vietnamese people whose children were missing during the American Operation Babylift which evacuated Vietnamese orphans out of Vietnam in April 1975 had their DNA samples taken in Ho Chi Minh City on May 2.

The DNA sampling was part of the gathering held at Tuoi Tre’s headquarters for Babylift relatives (as these people are called) as well as representatives of the Operation Reunite and Hanoi-based Bionet Vietnam Biotechnology Joint Stock Company, which are responsible for locating the missing children.

The meeting discussed the search for those orphans that were missing during the evacuation that took place from April 3 to 26, 1975 when the Vietnam War in South Vietnam was coming to an end.

Bionet Vietnam Joint Stock Company will transfer all of the DNA samples to Hanoi, where they will be compared with the DNA samples of Americans who were evacuated out of Vietnam during the operation and are now searching for their Vietnamese parents.

“When a DNA match is found, we will conduct one more test to make sure the result is correct,” said Luyen Quoc Hau, general director of Bionet Vietnam.

Operation Reunite was founded in the U.S by Trista Goldberg, a Babylift child, in 2003, two years after she found their birth parents in Vietnam.

The humanitarian organization has set up a DNA data bank that stores DNA samples of Babylift children and Vietnamese people who are looking for their missing children.

During the Operation Babylift, over 2,000 orphans were evacuated from Saigon to the U.S and other countries, including Canada, France and Australia.

Source: tuoitrenews