Around 226,000 people have registered as victims of forced mobilization by Japanese authorities in Korea while the peninsula was under Japanese rule between 1910 and 1945, a South Korean government agency said.
The agency, called the Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Colonialism in Korea, said Monday that the data were compiled after a fact-finding investigation began in 2005.
The commission said it has received applications for allowances from the families of around 100,000 Koreans who died or disappeared outside the Korean Peninsula after being forcibly mobilized by Japanese authorities.
Park In Hwan, chairman of the commission, said it has been estimated that authorities mobilized an estimated 7.8 million Koreans when the peninsula was under Japanese rule.
Under colonial rule, Japan forcibly mobilized Koreans to work as support personnel for the Japanese military and in Japanese corporations in Korea, Japan and elsewhere in its empire.
