Siguen apareciendo pescadores norcoreanos muertos en Japón

Suspected North Korean Fishermen Found Dead in Washed-Up Vessel

Seven bodies were recovered from wooden boat, Japanese officials say


A wooden boat is seen in front of a breakwater in Yurihonjo, Akita prefecture, on Nov. 24. In recent months there has been a surge in the number of North Korean fishing vessels discovered on Japanese shores or in nearby waters.


By Chieko Tsuneoka | The Wall Street Journal

TOKYO—Japanese police said they recovered seven bodies from a wooden boat that likely came from North Korea, adding to a fast-rising toll from that country’s primitive fishing vessels.

The boat was found washed up on Jan. 10 and the bodies inside were recovered on Monday, along with a badge depicting North Korea’s former leaders and a cigarette packet with Korean writing, Hiroshi Abe, police spokesman in the coastal city of Kanazawa, said on Tuesday.

The number of North Korean fishing vessels found on Japanese shores or in waters nearby surged late last year, coinciding with a push by North Korean propaganda for fishermen to meet annual seafood quotas.

Japan’s coast guard said it handled 104 cases of suspected North Korean vessels found adrift or aground in 2017, the highest since records began in 2013 and up from 66 cases in 2016. The exact number of vessels isn’t clear because in some cases, pieces of wood and other ship fragments drifting in the water could come from more than one vessel, a coast guard official said.

The coast guard counted 35 bodies connected to the vessels in 2017, also a record. The official said the actual number of North Korean victims could be higher because some bodies washed ashore couldn’t be identified.

In a few cases, North Korean fishermen have survived shipwrecks or other problems at sea and made it to Japan’s shores. In November, eight men claiming to be North Korean fishermen were found near a harbor in the northern city of Yurihonjo, Akita prefecture. A badly damaged fishing boat was found nearby. The men were later sent back to North Korea.

A North Korean fishing captain was charged Dec. 28 with theft after authorities said he and his men raided a hut on a normally uninhabited island off northern Japan, Japanese media reported. The captain was reportedly accused of stealing televisions, solar panels and other items. A spokesman for the prosecutors’ office in the northern city of Hakodate, which issued the indictment, said he couldn’t answer queries by telephone.

North Korean state media often promote an image of an abundance of food resources, and leader Kim Jong Un has regularly visited fish-processing plants as part of his “on-the-spot guidance” trips around the country. But the annual fish quotas may have become harder to achieve after North Korea sold some of its coastal fishing rights to Chinese fleets in recent years to raise millions of dollars in revenue, according to South Korean intelligence accounts.