Myanmar Chosen For Last Memorial Tour for War Dead; Program to End Due to Advanced Age of Bereaved Relatives

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:19 JST, August 25, 2025

Myanmar has been chosen by Nippon Izokukai (Japan War-Bereaved Families Association) as the destination for its final memorial tour to commemorate Japanese nationals who died during World War II.

The tours have been part of a memorial and goodwill program organized by the association. The group has decided to conclude the program this fiscal year due to the increasingly advanced age of bereaved family members.

Due to recent political unrest in Myanmar, the association has not held a tour there in some years, but many relatives wanted to go. Nippon Izokukai therefore decided to organize its first tour to Myanmar in six years and has limited the areas to be visited in the country to two.

The memorial tours began in 1991. As of fiscal 2024, Nippon Izokukai had conducted 451 tours in Japan and abroad, in which about 16,320 people participated. The association has held 41 memorial tours in Myanmar, where about 137,000 Japanese died in World War II. The most recent was in December 2019, but the association refrained from tours in Myanmar after that following the military coup in that nation.

As the situation in Myanmar is calming down, the final tour will visit Yangon and another area.

The association has built three elementary schools in Myanmar with donations from bereaved relatives. A meeting with local children is part of the schedule for the forthcoming visit.

The Nippon Izokukai organized a memorial tour in June, and more than 100 family members visited waters that had become battlefields during the war, including the sea off the Philippines. The association originally planned to visit the Philippines again as the final tour, but it changed the destination to Myanmar, where many families wished to go.