Japan Press Weekly

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2022 August 24 - 30 [PEACE]

Memorial event held for Koreans killed in 1945 Ukishima-maru incident

In memory of the Koreans who were killed in the Ukishima-maru incident, the tragic sinking of a Japanese Navy cargo ship just after the end of WWII, a rally took place on August 24 in front of the cenotaph for the Korean victims in a park in Kyoto’s Maizuru City, with 130 people participating.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kurabayashi Akiko attended the rally along with representatives of local organizations of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chosen Soren) and the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan).

On August 24, 1945, the Ukishima-maru cargo ship carrying 3,735 Koreans including those who were taken to Japan as forced laborers was sunk off the coast of Maizuru on its way to Busan, the nearest major port to Japan on the Korean Peninsula. In this tragedy, 549 Korean laborers and their family members were killed.

At the rally, the head of a local civil group working to remember the Ukishima-maru tragedy, Shinada Shigeru, delivered a speech and said, “Even now, we see wars and armed conflicts breaking out in different places around the globe. We need to work to create a world which renounces wars forever.”

Past related article:
> Ceremony held to mourn Korean war dead whose remains are still kept in Japan [August 26, 2018]