Bones, a skull found by divers in the sea mine in Japan, where more than 100 years of Korean forced workers died in World War II

Police said on Wednesday that a group of bones had fallen into a wartime A mine in Japan is human remains, and a Japanese group said to search for remains that it is certain that it belongs to about 180 years of Korean forced workers who died in the 1942 accident.

The police said that their three bones and a sentence were found this week by the Korean divers at the previous site of the Chosi mine in the West Yamaguchi province, confirmed that they were all human remains.

But the police said that their analysis could not determine whether the bones of the three ends and the skull belong to the same person or their age or the timing of death.

The group, known as Kizamu Kai, said it is certain that the remains belong to the victims who died in the mine 83 years ago and that the discovery is a big boost in their efforts to restore other remains of 136 and 46 Japanese forced workers who were killed in a mine.

“I was waiting for this day,” said group representative, Yuko Ineny, on Tuesday after finding the bones.

After the initial attempts did not succeed, a survey conducted by the group confirmed on a path to the place where the remains are believed The Times mentioned Japan.

Bone recovery comes a few days after the weekend summit in Tokyo between Prime Minister Shigro Ishiba and South Korean President Lee Jay Meongy offer friendly relations between the two countries to cooperate in the main challenges, such as regional security and trade, while avoiding historical differences.

The Chosei Undersea mine began its operations in 1914. In February 1942, part of the roof of the mine column collapsed, the mine was immersed and 183 workers were killed inside. The accident has always been forgotten until a group of citizens began to investigate in 1991, initially to hold a memorial to the victims and maintain the previous mining site, including the entrance and the ventilation spear.

Historians say that Japan used hundreds of thousands of Korean workers before and during World War II, including those who were forcibly brought from the Korean Peninsula, in the Japanese mines and factories to compensate for the lack of employment because most Japanese men of working age were sent to the battlefields across Asia and the Pacific.

After years of work to collect witnesses of witnesses and historical documents about the mine, the group started searches for the sea on the remains of the victims last year.

Ishiba, who recognized the Japanese aggression in wartime and showed more sympathy for Asian victims, gave a gesture earlier this year to hear experts on how to safely perform searches.

The chief treasury minister, Yoshimasa Hayai, offered his condolences to all the victims of the mine accident and said that the government followed the police examination. He said that the government has not yet obtained experience in the safety of the surface searches for the remains of the site.

Kizamu Kai has advanced with searches on the mine site on its own. The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, responsible for the remains of the war, was reluctant to help finance searches.

Critics say that the Japanese government has long been reserved to discuss atrocities in wartime. This includes sexual assault and enslavement of Asian women – many of them Koreans Known as “women comfort” – The Koreans mobilized and forced to work in Japan, especially in the last years of World War II.

The government of Japan confirmed that all war compensation cases between the two countries were resolved under the 1965 Normalization Treaty.

Korean compensation for Japanese atrocities during its brutal colonial rule requires repeated relations between the Asian neighborhoods. But since 2023, their relations have improved under Washington’s pressure to allocate the differences that hinder the decisive security cooperation with the growth of the Chinese threat in the region.

“This year has been 80 years since the end of the war and 60 years since the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea,” Yuko Inoye, head of the civil group, participating, He told Japan Times last month. “Returning part of the remains will be historical on our peaceful friendship with people on the Korean Peninsula.”