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Inside Minister Yun Ho-jung speaks throughout an interview with Yonhap Information Company, Jan. 16, at his workplace in central Seoul. Yonhap
Korea seeks to award a Japanese civic group for its function within the restoration of victims’ stays on the web site of a 1942 Japanese coal mine catastrophe the place greater than 100 Korean pressured laborers died, Inside Minister Yun Ho-jung has stated.
If realized, it might mark the primary time for the South Korean authorities to bestow a state ornament to a Japanese civic group since Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.
Yun stated he would push to honor the Affiliation to Etch the Calamity of the Beneath Sea Coal Mine Catastrophe into Historical past in an interview with Yonhap Information Company on Friday, noting a latest bilateral settlement to conduct DNA evaluation to establish the stays recovered on the Chosei Mine final yr.
Yoko Inoue, second from proper, a co-head of the Affiliation to Etch the Calamity of the Beneath Sea Coal Mine Catastrophe into Historical past, speaks throughout a press convention at a Home of Councillors’ constructing in Tokyo, Feb. 28, 2025. Yonhap
“The Japanese authorities had beforehand not acknowledged that there have been victims on the Chosei coal mine web site,” Yun stated. “That is why it was South Korean divers who labored with the Japanese civic group that discovered the stays.
“There will likely be a authorities award for the Japanese civic group and our divers who participated within the stays restoration.”
In 1942, a devastating flood on the Chosei coal mine in Japan’s western Yamaguchi Prefecture killed 183 employees, together with 136 Koreans who had been forcibly mobilized.
Whereas the accident had lengthy been forgotten, the Japanese civic group has labored to research the catastrophe and get better the victims’ stays since its formation in 1991.
Via crowd funding, the group carried out underwater restoration efforts and located 4 human bone fragments, together with a cranium, final August, renewing curiosity within the catastrophe. South Korean divers Kim Kyung-soo and Kim Soo-eun took half within the stays’ restoration.
Final week, the 2 international locations agreed to conduct the DNA evaluation throughout President Lee Jae Myung’s summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, elevating hopes the stays may very well be returned to the victims’ households.
The inside ministry has already determined to offer a minister’s commendation to the Japanese group and the divers. It plans to ship the commendation to the Japanese group subsequent month in Japan.
In the meantime, Yun stated he could be keen to push for state awards for others, together with a Japanese journalist who unearthed a listing of passengers who boarded a Japanese ship that sank in 1945 whereas repatriating Koreans, and killed tons of.
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