A Defense Ministry watchdog investigating why the daily activity logs of Ground Self-Defense Force troops deployed as peacekeepers in South Sudan vanished for months might release an interim report by month's end, a government source said.
The Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance is looking into whether the Defense Ministry intentionally concealed the logs, which documented the situation Japanese troops faced as fighting from the civil war approached their base during the U.N. peacekeeping operation in the young African nation.
It is likely to conduct a large-scale investigation by interviewing hundreds of ministry officials and SDF personnel, according to the source.