Many Dead in N. Korea after Hiroshima, Nagasaki A-Bombings

August 5, 2018

Tokyo- Among people who returned to North Korea after experiencing the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, western Japan, 51 of 111 people whose whereabouts were found in the past decade were dead, it has been learned.

The Japan Congress against A- and H-Bombs plans to submit a request to the welfare ministry later in August seeking enhanced medical support for bombing victims in North Korea.

A representative of the Hiroshima group working to abolish atomic and hydrogen bombs visited North Korea in July and received an interim report on a survey on North Korean victims from a local association of hibakusha and their supporters.

The survey, the third of its kind, covered 382 people who were alive as of 2008. Of 111 people whose whereabouts were found in January-May 2018, 60 were alive.

The head of the Hiroshima association of Korean hibakusha said the standard of medical institutions in North Korea are much lower than that of Japanese institutions and the fatality rate is higher.

The official asked for early support from Japan, including medicines and hospital construction.

Japan's law for assistance to atomic bombing survivors calls for benefits for medical fees and medical support, but aid to hibakusha in North Korea is difficult due to the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The representative of the Hiroshima group against A- and H-bombs said the Japanese government needs to promote specific measures from a humanitarian standpoint.

According to the city government of Hiroshima, several tens of thousands of Koreans were in the city at the time of the atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, including those who were forcibly brought there as labor during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. Jiji Press