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A new Twitter account has been set up as a tribute to all of Canada's fallen soldiers, which will tweet the name of every soldier who has died at war.

The @WeAreTheDead Twitter account will tweet one name at 11 minutes past every hour, along with as much information they can fit into the 140 character tweet limit. For example, one of the tweets said: 'Sgt. Eric Mackay Sullivan (Canadian Infantry - Eastern Ontario Regiment). Oct. 12, 1918.'

The account will tweet the names and information automatically via a computer algorithm, which chooses the names at random from an electronic list.

It will take more than 13 years to complete this tribute, depending on how many more names are added to the list from now until then. It is not expected to finish until at least June 2025.

Andrew Potter, managing editor of the Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian online news site, said that the inspiration for this Twitter scheme came from soldier and poet John Alexander McCrae who is most well known for his poem In Flanders Fields. He wished for everyone to always remember those who fought for us. But Potter believed that it should not just happen on 11 November.

Potter said: 'There is no reason why we should only do so once a year, when we march and mourn and pray and lament. Through this Twitter account, and through more extensive use of social media down the line, we hope to make the act of keeping faith a more subtle, but in many ways more permanent feature, of the lives of Canadians.'

The full database of Canada's military dead can be searched online on the Veterans Affairs website through a Virtual War Memorial, which contains more detailed descriptions of those killed. Some include photographs.

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