Five corpses and two human heads were discovered inside a shipwreck on the coast of Japan on Friday 27th December 2019.
The heavily damaged boat washed ashore on Japan’s Sado Island and is suspected of being from North Korea, as the vessel had Korean lettering painted on its side.
The remains that were found on the boats consisted of three bodies with heads, two heads without bodies and two bodies without heads. This has been officially counted as seven bodies as it is unclear whether the bodies and heads came from the same people, a coast guard official said. He stated that all five bodies whose gender could be determined were male.
Japanese media said the remains were “partially skeletonised”, which could indicate the victims had been at sea for a long time.
The boat was discovered in a region that faces North Korea and where around 100 similar vessels, known as “ghost ships” in the Japanese media, are found every year.
These “ghost ships” are more common in winter, when it is thought that rough seas batter North Korean boats and blow them off course.
Previously, it was thought that the bodies found on these boats belonged to spies or defectors, but currently it’s believed that they are probably fishermen who ventured farther in quest of food.
