Remains of Japanese soldiers recovered

THE remains of 118 Japanese soldiers who died here in World War Two have been recovered, cremated and flown back to their country.
The exercise involved two teams which recovered 42 remains in Morobe, 36 in Northern, 21 in Madang and 19 in East and West Sepik.
The team that covered Morobe and Madang collected remains in Kosakosa (Bogia) Kawalang (Nawaeb), Ziwewaneng (Finschhafen) and Nambariwa (Sialum) in Tewae-Siassi.
Japanese translator Kazuhiro Nozawa, married to a Watut local, said the ninth cremation ceremony was hosted at Muya village, outside Lae, yesterday.
The cremation of bones collected in Madang and Morobe was witnessed by Japanese delegates, including the siblings of five soldiers who died in the war, a bone specialist and two Japanese government officials.
Nozawa said a cremation ceremony for the remains in the two Sepik provinces would be held at Peace Park, in Wewak, today.
“So far, the remains of 75,000 soldiers are yet to be recovered among the 130,000 Japanese soldiers who died in PNG,” Nozawa said.
He said the recovery exercise was conducted each year under an agreement between the Papua New Guinea and Japanese governments.
Nozawa said the recovery exercise started in 1965.
However, Wampar local-level council manager Joe Paru raised concern over the health hazard as the remains were being cremated out in the open a few metres behind Muya Primary School.
“Though the concern is genuine, lack of proper facilities provided by the host government to cremate the bones resulted in us using residential foyers, based on government-to-government understanding,” Nozawa said.