Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in an emergency meeting late Monday night, announced that Tokyo has confirmed the deaths of seven Japanese workers, killed during hostage crisis at a natural gas complex in Algeria.
Abe said Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Minoru Kiuchi saw and identified bodies of seven Japanese workers of Yokohama-based JGC Corp at a local hospital. Another three JGC workers still remain missing.
Later that evening Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga held a news conference in which he offered condolences for the "people who worked far away from their homes" fulfilling their duties on the gas project in the Sahara desert.