Seoul: South Korea will participate in the excavation of the remains of Korean forced laborers conducted by the United States in Papua New Guinea for the first time next week, the interior ministry said Thursday.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense whose mission is to recover unaccounted-for service members, has been conducting the remains excavation in the Rabaul region of the Pacific Ocean country. Three South Koreans, including one from the National Forensic Service and a private excavation expert, will take part in the project for five days starting August 25, the ministry stated.
This marks the first instance of cooperation between South Korea and the U.S. in the field of excavating the remains of victims of Japan's wartime forced mobilization in the Pacific region. The collaboration follows an MOU signed by the interior ministry and the DPAA a year ago.
The number of Koreans who were killed or remained missing in the Pacific region after being mobilized to work for Japan during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 is estimated at 5,407. The Rabaul region is believed to account for 107 of them.
In cooperation with the DPAA, South Korea successfully retrieved and identified the remains of Choi Byeong-yeon, a victim of forced mobilization, and brought them home in 2023.