Three bodies recovered by Russia that are believed to be those of people missing from a tourist boat that sank off Hokkaido in April arrived in Japan on a coast guard vessel Saturday.
The bodies, discovered between May and June, were handed over to the Japan Coast Guard by Russian authorities the previous day following DNA tests conducted in Russia. The tests based on data sent from Japan showed the bodies were those of two of the passengers and a crew member of the sightseeing boat Kazu I, which sank in bad weather on April 23 leaving 15 dead and 11 missing.
The Hokkaido police will release the bodies to the victims' families after conducting further DNA tests, officials said.
The bodies are believed to be those of Akira Soyama, a 27-year-old deckhand, and a female and male passenger among those still unaccounted for.
One of the bodies was found in the southern part of Sakhalin and the others on the disputed Kunashiri Island.
The boat was recovered from the seabed about 11 kilometers west of Utoro port in Shari, where it departed with 26 people aboard for what was supposed to be a three-hour cruise around the Shiretoko Peninsula. The tour was conducted despite warnings of bad weather.
Kunashiri is one of four Russia-controlled, Japan-claimed islands collectively called the Northern Territories by Tokyo and the Southern Kurils by Moscow.