DEATH AT SEA
THE remains of eight people were found on an unmanned ‘ghost ship’ in Japan in the latest of a string of shocking seashore discoveries.
Some of the cadavers were reduced to bone when officials found the crewless 23ft wooden boat washed up on a beach in the northern Akita territory on Monday.
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Two further bodies were found in separate places on the edge of the surf on Sado isand, which lies 450 miles from North Korea.
Their putrefying bodies could not yet be identified, though boxes of North Korean tobacco and Korean script lay nearby, along with a wrecked wooden boat.
The disturbing discoveries come days after a group of eight survivors washed ashore in the same area, claiming to be North Korean fisherman who had drifted there when the vessel developed problems.
Television footage from a pier in the city of Yurihonjo on Japan's northwestern coast showed a wooden boat rigged with bare light bulbs, used to attract fish and squid.
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It was not clear whether the people on the boat were in fact fishermen who got into trouble at sea, or possible defectors from North Korea.
About 30,000 North Koreans have defected since the devastating famine in the mid-90s. It is possible that the so-called ‘ghost ships’ could be down to North Korean attempts to satisfy hunger by demanding vast quotas of seafood.
Dozens of North Korean fishing vessels wash up on Japan's Sea of Japan coast every year.
Sometimes their occupants have already died at sea, with headless skeletons and rotten corpses ending up in Japan's fishing ports in what local media have dubbed ‘ghost ships’.
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In late 2015, at least 14 weathered vessels with almost two dozen bodies reached Japanese shores or were found floating in regional waters. Sky News reported that 44 boats full of dead people had washed up in 2016 alone.
Despite stormy relations between the two countries, the Japanese coastguard occasionally rescues North Korean fishermen in maritime accidents, last week saving three out of 12 North Korean fishermen after their boat capsized in high seas.
The Japanese coastguard also found another capsized boat last week in the Sea of Japan with four bodies inside, with media reporting they were also North Korean fishermen.
