Korea to participate in U.S. excavation of forced labor victims' remains
Published: 21 Aug. 2025, 17:56
![This file photo taken Dec. 3, 2023, shows the arrival of the remains of Choi Byeong-yeon, a Korean victim of Japan's wartime mobilization, at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/08/21/cdb5e15f-7fdc-4bdc-9a0f-f398fad4f465.jpg)
This file photo taken Dec. 3, 2023, shows the arrival of the remains of Choi Byeong-yeon, a Korean victim of Japan's wartime mobilization, at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. [YONHAP]
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.
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 Koreans, including one from the National Forensic Service and a private excavation expert, will also take part in the project for five days starting Aug. 25, the ministry said.
It is the first time that Korea and the United States will cooperate in the field of excavating the remains of the victims of Japan's wartime forced mobilization in the Pacific region. The cooperation is a follow-up measure to 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 1910-45 is estimated at 5,407. The Rabaul region is believed to account for 107 of them.
In cooperation with the DPAA, Korea retrieved and identified the remains of Choi Byeong-yeon, a victim of forced mobilization, and brought them home in 2023.
Yonhap
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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