LONDON (Kyodo) Japanese expats in London have finished restoring a cemetery containing the remains of their compatriots, many of whom could not be returned to their mother country due to war or economic circumstances.

Members of the Japanese Residents' Association have spent the last few years repairing the once dilapidated burial ground, which is contained within a larger cemetery in Hendon, north London. The Japanese plot is thought to contain at least 31 urns of ashes.

The association decided to act when they saw the state of the graveyard and realized that many of those buried there probably had no chance of getting back to their home country before they died.