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Articles: Japanese WWII soldier found alive

Posted by admin on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 07:36 AM

An ex-Japanese soldier who disappeared after World War II and was officially declared dead in 2000 has turned up alive in Ukraine, officials say.

Ishinosuke Uwano was serving with the Japanese Imperial Army in Russia's Sakhalin Island when the war ended. He lost contact with his family in 1958. The 83-year-old has now reappeared, in Ukraine, where he is married and has a family, Japanese officials say. He is due to visit Japan for the first time in six decades on Wednesday. Just six years ago, his family officially registered him as having been killed in the war - and his details were removed from the official family registry. Because of this, Mr Uwano must "return to Japan technically as a Ukrainian citizen with a Ukraine passport," a government official said. Mr Uwano is due to visit family members and friends in Iwate, northern Japan, with his son before returning to Ukraine on 28 April, the AFP news agency reports. The Japanese authorities are now restoring him to the family registry. Strong interest Mr Uwano's existence came to light last year after he asked friends in Ukraine to help him contact the Japanese government, which then sent officials to interview him in Kiev. He was one of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians who were left stranded across the Pacific and in parts of China and Russia after the war ended. Some were kept as prisoners and forced to work as slave labourers, others chose to remain of their own accord. Why Mr Uwano remained in Russia, and how he ended up in Ukraine, has not been disclosed. There is still much interest in Japan in the plight of former soldiers who never made it home, the BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says. Last year, Japanese officials returned empty-handed after going to a remote Philippine village to investigate reports that two former Imperial Army members were hiding there.

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