Boat With 7 Bodies Discovered Off Coast Of Japan, Presumably From North Korea - Reports

Boat With 7 Bodies Discovered Off Coast of Japan, Presumably From North Korea - Reports

The Japanese Coast Guard has discovered a boat with the bodies of seven people and now it is being investigated whether they were North Korean nationals, media reported on Saturday

TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th December, 2019) The Japanese Coast Guard has discovered a boat with the bodies of seven people and now it is being investigated whether they were North Korean nationals, media reported on Saturday.

According to the Japanese NHK broadcaster, a wooden boat was discovered the day before on the coast of Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. There were inscriptions in Korean on the boat. However, due to bad weather conditions, it only became possible to resume inspecting the boat on Saturday morning.

The gender or age of the deceased is still unknown since the bodies were partially decomposed and some skeletonized. Experts are trying to find out whether the bodies belonged to the citizens of North Korea.

The number of North Korean fishing vessels in the Japanese coastal waters peaked in 2018 and remains high to this day. Tokyo believes that this is due to an increased number of Chinese fishing vessels off the coast of North Korea. Modernized and significantly better equipped Chinese ships are pushing North Korean fishermen further into the sea. Korean boats were built in the 1970s and 80s and are not intended for sailing on the high seas.