Tracing back 3,500 kilometers to home country

I was told that my grandmother used to have sore eyes from crying day and night, missing her second son, Kim Gyeong-soo (aged 65) said in tears while he was telling the story of his late grandmother. In the arms of Kim was the urn of ashes of his uncle Kim Ik-jung at Sumireu Park in front of Busan Port Passenger Terminal at 11:00 a.m. on Friday. His uncle who used to live in Gochang County, North Jeolla Province was taken by Japanese soldiers to Hokkaido in 1942. Back then, he was 18 years old. We were informed that my uncle died from a bombing attack two years after he had worked in construction sites in Japa.

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Some 115 deceased Koreans who died in Japan after they were forcibly taken under the Japanese colonial rule returned to their country as ashes. It was a 70-year belated returning to their home. Having suffered from forced labor at airfield, dam construction sites in Hokkaido, they ended their short lives in a foreign land.

Committee for commemorating and returning of forced laborers in Hokkaido that has been collecting remains of Korean victims since 1997 arrived in Busan Port at around 08:00 a.m. on Friday. Some 30 people from the committee appeared in a line at an arrival lounge with ancestral tablets and 18 wooden coffins covered with cotton cloth. They have finally crossed the sea that they had failed to do so in their lifetime. Our thanks and respect goes to conscious people of different religions and activists in Japan, Jeong Byeong-ho, head of Steppingstone for Peace which is Korean organization under the committee said.

We are sorry that it has taken long 70 years for the victims to return home, Yoshihiko Tonohira, head of East-Asian Citizens` Network, Japanese organization under the committee, lowered his head down. The bill for collective self-defense right is a big issue in Japan these days and it is hoped that the return of remains will be the steppingstone for Korea and Japan to go together for peaceful future without any wars.

They moved to the nearby Sumireu Park and had requiem to comfort souls of the victimized. The park was the place where the Korean victims took Japanese ferry when they were forcibly taken to Japan. On Sep. 11, the committee began the long-delayed return at a temple in Fukagawa, Hokkaido where all the remains gathered. Having traveled to different areas in Hokkaido, they arrived in Tokyo on Sep. 14 and then in Busan after passing by Kyoto and Hiroshima. They returned after tracing back all the route of some 3,500 kilometers that they were forcibly taken.

In the afternoon on Friday, the deceased were temporarily laid in state at an Anglican church in Jung District, Seoul. The funeral will be held at the Seoul Square at 07:00 p.m. on Saturday with some 1,000 citizens and laid to rest at Seoul National Memorial park in Gyeonggi Province in the morning of Sunday.