Likely remains of forced Korean laborers found in Japan

SEOUL, Aug. 14 (Yonhap) -- A group of South Korean and Japanese civic activists
said Friday that they have discovered 20 unidentified remains in Japan believed
to be those of Koreans mobilized to work for the Japanese colonial regime.

Historical records have shown that Japan drafted hundreds of thousands of Koreans
to work at coal mines and military facilities or serve as sex slaves in and
outside of Japan in the later years of its 1910-45 colonial occupation of the
peninsula.
Park Sun-joo, a professor or archeology at Chungbuk National University in South
Korea, and a civic group in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido said that since
October 2005 they have discovered 20 unidentified remains buried near the grounds
of a former public cemetery in the city of Wakkanai.
The bodies are believed to be those of South Koreans forced to work at an airport
construction site from 1943 to 1945 that later became Hokkaido Airport.
A South Korean truth commission on forced mobilization under Japanese rule
estimates that some 4,000 Korean workers were sent to the construction site as of
1944. Some 90 were believed to have died with no proper burial.
Many of the remains were buried after being partially cremated, with some of the
bodies having been found to be broken off at the waist. The remains were buried
no deeper than 60 centimeters underground, much shallower than normal burials.
The activists also suggested that some may have been executed, as one of the
bodies discovered showed a hole in the back of the skull believed to be from a
gun shot.
The remains have been moved and are now being housed at a nearby Buddhist temple,
according to Park. Some 300 South Korean and Japanese volunteers and activists
have taken part in the excavation process.
Park said he was certain that the remains were of forced mobilized laborers,
given that all the registered remains at the former cemetery were exhumed and
relocated to a new area.
"I hope the remains can be returned to their respective families to heal their
pain," said Park. He said the group plans to resume the search and excavation
project in May 2010 near the former cemetery.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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