South Korea calls on Japan to fully acknowledge the wartime history of forced labor at the Sado mine, as it holds a separate memorial ceremony for Korean victims. The event takes place on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture and marks the third consecutive year Seoul has commemorated the victims separately.
Korea’s ambassador to Japan delivers the request during the ceremony, saying Korean workers were mobilized and forced to work at the mine under colonial-era government-arranged labor placement and conscription. The reporting notes that over 1,500 Koreans were mobilized during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, with workers assigned to dangerous underground tasks and some losing their lives.
Across the two sources provided, the framing is consistent: both describe the separate memorial and the central appeal for Japan to confront the full history of the Sado mine. The Korea Times report adds additional context about the site’s status as a World Heritage location and emphasizes “full history” as part of understanding and healing, while Yonhap presents the same development in a shorter, straight news format.
