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Japanese group to visit kin’s burial site in N.Korea

A group of 16 Japanese nationals arrived in Beijing on Friday en route North Korea for a visit to graves near Pyongyang, where ashes of Japanese nationals are thought to have been buried, the group said.

The relatives of those who died in North Korea around the end of World War II are scheduled to arrive in Pyongyang on Saturday and stay there for six days, according to the group.

The members are from various parts of Japan including Chiba Prefecture and Nagoya, with flights departing from both Haneda airport in Tokyo and Kansai airport in Osaka Prefecture.

Tomoya Sato, an 80-year-old resident of Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, traced the relatives through a list possessed by his father of those buried at the Ryongsan burial site in the suburbs of Pyongyang.

According to Sato, relatives of about a dozen people on the list, which has around 2,400 names, have been found so far. Masako Takizawa, an 82-year-old resident of Nagoya who found the names of her mother and younger sister on the list, said before departing Haneda airport, ‘I had given up on visiting their graves so I am pleased it has come true.’
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