The South Korean military has excavated this year the remains of 753 fallen soldiers who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War, the defense ministry said Monday.

In a four-month project that began in April to find remains of missing service personnel, some 46,000 soldiers dug out sites in 56 regions across the country to recover the bodies, according to the ministry.

The excavation team will analyze the registry of missing soldiers and conduct DNA tests to trace their families after retrieving their remains, it added.

"Today, we kicked off another four-month excavation project, mobilizing some 50,000 soldiers to search some 46 regions for those missing," a defense ministry official said.

It is part of the military's excavation project, which first began in 2000 based upon records of former battle sites and registered soldiers during the three-year conflict, to repatriate the remains to their families.

So far, 9,339 bodies have been recovered, with 8,178 of them identified as South Korean soldiers, according to the ministry. (Yonhap)