Okinawa on Monday held a memorial service to mark the 69th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, with a crowd of some 4,600 people gathering to commemorate the more than 200,000 lives lost in the prefecture during the closing days of World War II.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy were among the guests at a memorial service held to commemorate the war dead.

The anniversary came amid local fears that the island prefecture, where many civilians died after being caught in the battle between Japan and Allied forces, almost all from the United States, may once again be drawn into war as the Abe government pushes forward with efforts to lift the nation's self-imposed ban on collective self-defense.