Defecting or fishing? 11 wooden fishing boats from North Korea with 25 dead bodies found in Japanese waters
Coastguard officials are investigating a series of wooden vessels that have washed ashore in northern Japan, with 25 bodies on board
Japanese authorities are looking into a spate of incidents in which small boats, apparently from North Korea, have washed up on beaches the length of northern Japan.
In the last two months, police and the Japan coastguard have been called out to deal with 11 wooden fishing boats, mostly in a poor state of repair, either drifting off the coast or on beaches facing North Korea across the Sea of Japan, or East Sea.
The bodies of 25 people were found aboard the vessels, a coastguard official confirmed.
"We are carrying out an investigation into these vessels and where they come from, although reports that Hangul characters were on the boats are correct," said coastguard spokesman Yoshiaki Hiroto, referring to the Korean alphabet.
"Fishing equipment was also found aboard the boats."
In one of the most recent discoveries, a wooden boat was found adrift off Wajima, in Ishikawa Prefecture, last Friday. Hangul characters, written in red on the hull of the ship, read 'Korean People's Army No. 325'.
If the North learned anything from that incident it would have been that it's just easier for them to infiltrate someone into Japan using a fake passport and putting them aboard a flight or a ferry ship to Japan