Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Saturday attended a memorial service for members of the Self-Defense Forces who died on duty, vowing to protect people's lives.
"The SDF is the biggest pillar of our defense capability," Ishiba said at the ceremony at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tokyo, which was attended by about 300 people including bereaved family members and government officials.
"I firmly pledge that we'll honor the wishes of those who died in the line of duty and do everything we can to protect the lives and the peace of the people of Japan," he said.
In the year from September 2024, 30 SDF members were recognized to have died due to accidents in the line of duty and were newly dedicated to a cenotaph.
Of them, 13 were from the Ground SDF, 10 from the Maritime SDF, six from the Air SDF, and one from the ministry's Tohoku Defense Bureau. The list included two crew members of an ASDF T-4 trainer aircraft that crashed in Aichi Prefecture in May this year.
The total number of SDF members killed on duty since the 1950 launch of the National Police Reserve, the predecessor of the SDF, has reached 2,142.
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