December 5, 2024

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira, in his interpellation at the Upper House plenary session on December 4, demanded that the government commence the exhumation of the bodies of miners who died in a 1942 accident at Chosei Coal Mine in Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The casualties due to the inundation of the undersea coal-mine included 136 Koreans who had been forcibly conscripted from the Korean Peninsula.

Koike said, “The remains, which have been left beneath the cold sea for 82 years, should be returned to their families as soon as possible to restore their dignity.”

Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in response said, “At present, it would be difficult to discover the remains.”

In the 2004 Japan-South Korea summit meeting, then Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro promised to “seriously consider what Japan can do” to return the remains of wartime civilian conscripts to bereaved families. However, the Japanese government has been insisting that regarding the Chosei Coal Mine, it would be difficult to exhume the remains because they are underwater and where precisely the remains are buried is unknown.

Past related article:
> JCP Koike visits monument for Korean and Japanese victims of wartime flooding disaster at undersea coal mine [October 20, 2024]