A program that allows families of Japanese nationals who died in overseas battlefields during World War II to visit memorial sites and hold commemorative ceremonies abroad will end this fiscal year due to the aging of participants.
With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, Nippon Izokukai, a bereaved families organization for the war dead and the program's organizer, decided that it would be difficult to maintain the initiative with the average age of participants exceeding 80.
The program was launched in fiscal 1991 with the help of state subsidies. Many people have participated in memorial services to remember the war dead, while the program has also facilitated interactions with residents in the Pacific islands, China, the Philippines and other locations that were once fierce battlegrounds.
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