Munetoshi Fukagawa, a poet who survived the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and long led a movement to support conscripted Korean laborers, died of pneumonia and heart failure on Thursday, his family said. He was 87.
A native of Hiroshima, Fukagawa was exposed to radioactive fallout while supervising Koreans who were forced to work at a factory operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Fukagawa, whose real name was Masatoshi Maehata, began to investigate the wartime conscription of Koreans in 1973.
Later, he formed a group of families of deceased Korean forced laborers and led a movement to win compensation for South Koreans conscripted as workers during World War II.