No Gun Ri Massacre
| No Gun Ri massacre | |
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| Part of the Korean War | |
The twin-underpass railroad bridge at No Gun Ri, South Korea, in 1960. Ten years earlier, members of the U.S. military killed a large number of South Korean refugees under and around the bridge, early in the Korean War.
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| Location | Nogeun-ri, South Korea (also known as No Gun Ri) |
| Coordinates | 36°12′55″N 127°52′51″E / 36.215221°N 127.880881°E |
| Date | July 26, 1950 – July 29, 1950 |
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Attack type
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Shooting and air attack |
| Deaths | At least 163 dead or missing, according to South Korea About 400 dead, according to survivors Unknown, according to the U.S. |
| Victims | South Korean refugees |
| Perpetrators | U.S. military |
The No Gun Ri massacre (Hangul: 노근리 민간인 학살 사건; Hanja: 老斤里良民虐殺事件; RR: Nogeun-ri minganin haksal sageon) occurred on July 26–29, 1950, early in the Korean War, when an undetermined number of South Korean refugees were killed in a U.S. air attack and by small- and heavy-weapons fire of the 7th U.S. Cavalry at a railroad bridge near the village of Nogeun-ri (Korean: 노근리), 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Seoul. In 2005, a South Korean government inquest certified the names of 163 dead or missing and 55 wounded, and added that many other victims' names were not reported. The South Korean government-funded No Gun Ri Peace Foundation estimated in 2011 that 250–300 were killed, mostly women and children.
The incident was little-known outside Korea until publication of an Associated Press (AP) story in 1999 in which 7th Cavalry veterans corroborated survivors' accounts. The AP also uncovered declassified U.S. Army orders to fire on approaching civilians because of reports of North Korean infiltration of refugee groups. Some details were disputed, but the massacre account was found to be essentially correct. In 2001, the U.S. Army conducted an investigation and, after previously rejecting survivors' claims, acknowledged the killings, but described the three-day event as "an unfortunate tragedy inherent to war and not a deliberate killing". The army rejected survivors' demands for an apology and compensation. United States President Bill Clinton issued a statement of regret, adding the next day that "things happened which were wrong".
South Korean investigators disagreed with the U.S. report, saying that they believed that 7th Cavalry troops were ordered to fire on the refugees. The survivors' group called the U.S. report a "whitewash". The AP later discovered additional archival documents showing that U.S. commanders ordered troops to "shoot" and "fire on" civilians at the war front during this period; these declassified documents had been found but not disclosed by the Pentagon investigators. American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported that among the undisclosed documents was a letter from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea stating that the U.S. military had adopted a theater-wide policy of firing on approaching refugee groups. Despite demands, the U.S. investigation was not reopened.
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