Japanese visitors paid their respects Sunday at a site near the port of Chongjin in northeast North Korea for relatives who perished, many in a Soviet labor camp, after the end of World War II and the end of Japan's colonial rule of the peninsula.
The 11 members in the group — Kita Izoku Renraku Kai — which includes Japanese who lived in the area that is now part of North Korea, seek to retrieve the remains of those who perished in Komusan, north of Chongjin. Where the Soviet prison stood is now just a cornfield.
It is believed the site holds the remains of some 3,300 Japanese soldiers and security personnel who died in the Soviet camp.