Mother Hopeful Abductee Megumi Yokota Still Alive

Kawasaki, Kanagawa Pref., Oct. 2 (Jiji Press)–The mother of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese abductee to North Korea, said on Thursday that her daughter is alive, ahead of Megumi’s 61st birthday on Sunday. “Mom will never forget,” Sakie Yokota, 89, told a press conference in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. “I believe she’s still alive.” Megumi was abducted on Nov. 15, 1977, at the age of 13 on her way home from junior high school in the central Japanese city of Niigata. Sakie brought to the press conference a book on kittens, which she said Megumi liked when she was young. The mother recalled reading the book to her daughter repeatedly and said, “I want to send at least this book to her.” “Sixty-one is like my age,” she said. “I’m speechless at how many years have passed,” she said, referring to the inability to bring Megumi back home for nearly 50 years. “There’s too much hopelessness due to the repeated failures.” Sakie is the only living parent of an abductee recognized by the Japanese government who has yet to return home, as Akihiro Arimoto, the father of another abductee Keiko Arimoto, died in February at the age of 96. “Everyone has died, but there is still one person left, so I want to do my best,” she said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]