Remains of 2,700 colonial-era Korean laborers still in Japan

By Yi Whan-woo

The remains of more than 2,700 Korean laborers forcibly taken to work in Japan during the 1910-45 colonial rule, where they died are still in the neigboring country, a government commission said Wednesday.

Citing a joint investigation by Seoul and Tokyo, the Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Colonization in Korea said the remains of 2,745 conscripted Korean workers have been found at 340 sites in Japan since 2005.

The commission, which operates under the Prime Ministers’ Office, said 153 sets of the remains have been identified and 95 bereaved families have expressed their intention to repatriate them.

It added the number of remains is likely to increase in the future, saying that the Seoul-Tokyo investigation is still ongoing.

The commission’s announcement came amid a growing call for both Korea and Japan to step up efforts to repatriate the remains of the laborers.

However, this issue was not brought up during a bilateral summit between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Seoul, Monday.

The two neighbors initially set up a joint investigation committee in May 2005 to discuss retrieving the remains of Koreans in Japan.

From 2008 to 2010, the committee only repatriated 423 sets of remains of Korean soldiers and officers who fought for the Japanese military during World War II.

The bilateral discussions have slowed considerably since August 2012 due to deteriorated ties between Seoul and Tokyo over historical and territorial disputes.

Some 59,000 Koreans were mobilized to work at shipyards, coal mines and steel plants to produce weapons and other military supplies when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula. Many of them did not return home after WWII and their bodies were buried in nameless graves.