Nagasaki: Ceremony for Victims of Korean Jeju Massacre Held on Tsushima

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:30 JST, October 13, 2024

TSUSHIMA, Nagasaki — A ceremony to remember the victims of a 1948 government crackdown in Jeju, South Korea, was held on Sep. 22 on Tsushima Island, Nagasaki Prefecture, where the bodies of many of the victims washed ashore.

In March 1948, Jeju islanders went on strike to protest the South Korean government’s move to hold a general election without North Korea. On April 3, 1948, young people armed with rifles and other weapons attacked a police station and conducted other assaults. The government saw the attacks as part of a communist-instigated uprising and carried out a brutal crackdown that reportedly resulted in the deaths of about 30,000 of the island’s 300,000 residents, including children and the elderly.

The bodies of those killed in the crackdown washed up one after another on the shores of the northwestern part of Tsushima Island, which is close to the Korean Peninsula, and island locals cremated and buried them.

Yukiharu Eto, 67, following the wishes of his father, who participated in the burials, built a memorial tower on the shore in 2007.

About 110 people from Japan and South Korea participated in the Sept. 22 ceremony, where they offered prayers for the victims. A person in traditional South Korean clothing danced to the rhythm of drums and bells.

Ko Chun-ja, 83, who lives in Osaka, saw the incident as a child and lost her grandmother and two uncles in the crackdown. “I want to show my gratitude to those who put the ceremony on,” she said.