A former Imperial Army soldier, who hasn't been seen by his Japanese family since he went off to fight in World War II and was declared among the war dead in 2000, has resurfaced in Ukraine and is returning to Japan to see his relatives after 60 years, the government said.
Ishinosuke Uwano, now 83, was expected to arrive in Japan yesterday, accompanied by his Ukranian son, for 10 days with his surviving relatives in Iwate, about 460km northeast of Tokyo, said Suminori Arima, who is in charge of locating war veterans lost overseas for the Health and Welfare Ministry.
"It's wonderful that Mr. Uwano can make a homecoming visit in good health," Arima said.
Arima declined to say exactly where Uwano had been for the past six decades, nor why he had not been in touch with his Japanese family in all that time.
Uwano was on the island of Sakhalin in Russia's far east when the war ended in August 1945, and was last reported seen on that island in 1958. Arima did not say who reported seeing him there.
He failed to return to Japan and didn't contact any of his relatives there. In 2000 Uwano's family agreed to register him as having died in the war.
But the aging Uwano, who now lives in Ukraine with his Ukranian family, asked someone in his local community to help him track his Japanese relatives.
Inquiries by his acquaintance, whom Arima did not identify, eventually reached the health ministry, which sent staffers to interview Uwano at the Japanese Embassy in Kiev, Arima said.
The Iwate Prefecture government was working to restore his family registry -- a record of all births, marriages, deaths and other information -- to rerecord him as alive.
The ministry refused to provide any more information on Uwano or his Japanese and Ukranian families.
Tokyo believes about 400 World War II veterans remain in the former Soviet Union, including 40 who have been identified.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS