Families of Japanese Victims in Terror Siege Arrive in Dhaka

Dhaka, July 3 (Jiji Press)--Bereaved families of Japanese citizens killed and injured in the Dhaka hostage crisis arrived in the Bangladeshi capital late Sunday night aboard a Japanese government aircraft. The jet carrying a total of 18 members of eight families, and officials of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency left Tokyo International Airport at Haneda earlier in the day. Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Seiji Kihara, who was dispatched to Dhaka following the terrorist attack on a restaurant in the city, and officials at the Japanese embassy in Dhaka met with the bereaved relatives at a Dhaka airport where security has been tightened since the incident. They moved to a hotel by bus. In the attack from Friday to Saturday, a total of 20 people, including seven Japanese people, were killed. A Japanese man, Tamaoki Watanabe, was rescued but suffered injury. Of the seven Japanese killed, five were men--Makoto Okamura, 32, Nobuhiro Kurosaki, 48, Hiroshi Tanaka, 80, Hideki Hashimoto, 65, and Koyo Ogasawara, 56--and two were women--Yuko Sakai, 42, and Rui Shimodaira, 27, according to Japanese government sources. All of them were in Bangladesh for a JICA project. They were employees of three construction consulting companies in Tokyo or experts entrusted by the firms. Okamura, Sakai and Shimodaira were from Almec Corp., Kurosaki, Tanaka and Hashimoto from Oriental Consultants Global Co. and Ogasawara from Katahira & Engineers International. "Our biggest mission now is to let the seven dead victims and the injured man return home with their families as early as possible," Kihara told reporters. The relatives will be allowed to view the bodies of their loved ones immediately after necessary administrative and judicial procedures by the Bangladeshi government are completed, according to Kihara. Before the bereaved relatives' departure, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told them at Haneda that the Japanese government will support them as much as possible. In Tokyo earlier on Sunday, the Japanese government held a meeting of its National Security Council attended by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Kishida and some other officials. They agreed to make utmost efforts to support the relatives and confirmed that the government will work harder to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals abroad. In talks with reporters after the meeting, Abe expressed his deep grief over the deaths of the seven people. "It was an unforgivable act of terrorism," he said. "I feel strong anger." "We'll do all we can to secure the safety of Japanese in and outside our country," the prime minister said, calling for thorough investigations into the incident and close cooperation with the Bangladeshi government. Kishida instructed all Japanese diplomatic missions abroad to take steps to enhance the security of the country's nationals. Tokyo will consider the possibility of using the government jet to transport the bodies of the seven victims back to Japan. Also on Sunday, Abe was briefed on the current situation in Bangladesh by Kihara over the phone. The prime minister told Kihara to cooperate with the Bangladeshi government while meeting the bereaved families' requests as much as possible. END