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`War orphans' case thrown out

A court rejected a compensation suit filed by 40 Japanese who were abandoned in China as children after Tokyo's defeat in World War II, officials said yesterday.

The Tokyo District Court rejected demands for financial compensation for the displaced children, according to a court official who refused to be named.

The plaintiffs said the government was responsible for the decades-long delay in their return to Japan and for failing to provide adequate support when they came back.

The returnees were seeking ¥33 million (US$270,000) each in compensation, according to Kyodo News agency. Court officials refused to confirm the figure.

The case was among more than a dozen lawsuits filed by about 2,200 so-called "war orphans."

Many of them were children of Japanese farmers sent as colonists to China's remote northwest to develop farming land conquered by Tokyo.

They were left behind by their fleeing parents as Soviet troops closed in at the end of the war in 1945.

About 6,300 people came back after normalization of ties between the two countries in 1972, including 2,500 who were abandoned in China under the age of 12, according to the Health Ministry.

Raised by Chinese who adopted them, most of them were too young to remember their Japanese names or those of their natural parents. Some have, however, been able to reconnect with their families.

Tuesday's decision followed two other rulings for similar suits brought by war-displaced children.

Last month, the Kobe District Court ordered the government to pay between ¥6.6 million (US$54,000) and ¥23 million (US$189,000) to 61 of the 65 plaintiffs.

In July 2005, the Osaka District Court rejected a suit filed by 32 war orphans seeking compensation.
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