South Korea accelerates review of Japanese shipwreck lists

Seoul, Sep 12 (IANS) The South Korean government will accelerate efforts to verify the lists received from Japan of Korean passengers killed in a controversial 1945 sinking of a Japanese vessel, to help with victims' compensation, a Seoul official said on Thursday.

Last week, Japan gave South Korea 19 cases out of some 70 documents related to the passenger lists of the Ukishima Maru that sank in waters after an explosion in August 1945, Yonhap news agency reported.

The ship was transporting back home many Koreans who had been forcibly mobilised for wartime labour, as Korea was liberated from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

South Korea had requested Japan to provide the lists amid controversy over the cause of the sinking and Japan's reluctance to disclose them after the existence of the lists was revealed despite years of denial by Tokyo.

"We are putting the focus on relieving the victims from their suffering," a foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

"We don't know how long exactly the analysis is going to take, but we will do our best for the victims and bereaved families," the official said.

The official stressed that the government will continue to consult with Japan to obtain the rest of the documents. In May, Tokyo revealed during a lower house session that there are approximately 70 documents related to the passenger lists.

"As Japan has promised to provide (the remainder), we expect that they will follow through," the official added.

The ship, which belonged to the Japanese Navy, had departed from a port in the Aomori Prefecture en route to Busan on August 22, 1945, and was to make a port call in Kyoto two days later, but it sank in the water after an explosion in the lower part of the hull.

Japan had announced that the ship hit an underwater mine and 524 out of 3,700 passengers were killed in what it called an accident.

But the bereaved family members of the Korean victims claim more than 3,000 lost their lives, out of as many as 8,000 people aboard, and have charged that Japan intentionally blew up the ship.

Japan, for many years, had not acknowledged the passenger lists existed and insisted that they were lost in the sinking.

The lists provided to Seoul show the names of the passengers filed before and on the day of the ship's departure, according to the foreign ministry.

Additional analysis is required to identify and verify the personal information, but some of the materials contain specific details, such as the countries of birth and birth dates.

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