12 Japanese Missing People Added to U.N. List

Tokyo, Nov. 16 (Jiji Press)–A U.N. Human Rights Council group added 12 missing Japanese people not officially recognized as victims of North Korea’s abductions to a list compiled to urge Pyongyang to confirm their safety, sources have said. “I hope the Japanese government will take this opportunity to provide information to the United Nations and change the situation,” said Kazuhiro Araki, head of the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea. The Human Rights Council working group on enforced disappearances compiled a list of about 40 people, including government-recognized abductees such as Megumi Yokota, who was 13 when abducted in Niigata Prefecture, and missing people not officially recognized as abduction victims but likely to have been kidnapped by North Korea, commission and other sources said. The list was sent to North Korea in February to request the country to confirm the safety of those on the list and guarantee that their human rights are protected. Earlier this month, the working group told the Tokyo-based commission that the 12 people not officially recognized would be added to the list, including Takashi Osawa, who was 27 at the time of his disappearance in 1974 on Niigata’s Sado Island, and Minako Nakamura, who went missing at age 18 in Niigata’s Nagaoka in 1998. In a rally held in the prefecture’s namesake capital Saturday to call for the resolution of the abduction issue, Osawa’s brother, Shoichi, 89, mentioned the list. He asked the government to make more efforts to rescue missing people not recognized as abduction victims. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]