Two South Korean soldiers were returned to their families this week more than 57 years after they were killed in a battle during the Korean War following months of DNA testing and analysis of war records to confirm their identities, the Defense Ministry said Monday.

The confirmation marked the first time in which the ministry's KIA Recovery and Identification Agency was able to identify the remains of Korean War heroes using only its own resources. The agency had identified the remains of 26 people through DNA testing since 2000, but all with the help of private test centers, the agency said.

"The case is very significant in that it marks the first case in which the Defense Ministry independently handled the entire process of excavating the remains and confirming their identities," Yonhap News quoted the agency as saying in a press release.

The two KIAs were identified as 1st Sgt. Kim Roe-jong, who was killed at the age of 25, and Sgt. Kim Cheol-woong, who was 24-years-old when he was killed.

The two are both believed to have been killed on Sept. 26, 1951, while fighting alongside their Army unit near a mountain in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, the agency said.

Remains of over 2,700 soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, including those of 412 North Koreans and 195 Chinese soldiers, have so far been retrieved, but only 74 of them have been identified.

Over 100,000 South Korean soldiers still remain missing, according to the agency.