(VOVWORLD) - The cremated ashes of Merle Ratner, a left-wing and anti-war US activist and a friend of Vietnam, left New York for Vietnam after a ceremony held Wednesday by the Permanent Mission of Vietnam in New York and her relatives and friends.
 Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Vietnam's Permanent Representative to the UN (left) meets Dr. Ngo Thanh Nhan, husband of Ms. Merle Ratner, at the ceremony in New York, August 8, 2024. (Photo: Quang Huy/VNA correspondent in the US)
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At the ceremony, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, head of the mission, emphasized that although Ms. Ratner was born in the US, she devoted all her love to Vietnam, the country that became her second homeland.
The leaders and people of Vietnam will always remember and appreciate her love and dedication to Vietnam's resistance war, struggle for national liberation and unification, and development and integration, Ambassador Giang noted. The Vietnamese Party and State are waiting to welcome Ratner home, he said.
Her ashes will be scattered on the Do Son sea near Hai Phong on Saturday.
Merle Evelyn Ratner was born in New York City in 1956. At the age of 13, she took an active part in the anti-war movement and was known for hanging an anti-war banner on the Statue of Liberty. Ratner was a co-founder and coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) in the New York region.
After the re-unification of Vietnam in 1975, Ratner and her husband Dr. Ngo Thanh Nhan campaigned for the normalization of Vietnam-US relations and supported many foreign affairs activities of Vietnam. She was awarded the Friendship Order, the "For the Development of Vietnamese Women" insignia and the “For Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange” insignia.
She died in a traffic accident in New York on February 5, 2024.