A number of battered wooden boats carrying dead bodies have mysteriously washed up on the shores of Japan—and experts say they could be from North Korea.
Japanese authorities have not been able to definitively establish the nationalities of the bodies, however, evidence points to the reclusive communist state.
Japan is no stranger to these “ghost ships”—ships with no living crew. These vessels have been arriving in Japan from North Korea in previous years. According to a political science and economics professor at Japan’s Seigakuin University, Satoru Miyamoto, 80 similar ships have drifted into Japanese shores in 2013, 65 in 2014, 45 in 2015, and 66 in 2016, reported Business Insider.
However, in November alone 28 boats were found—a sudden spike in the number of discoveries compared to four boats same time last year.
This phenomenon has people thinking about what is going on.
With so much going on in North Korea, it is difficult to pinpoint what is driving the rise in the number of boats. However, some experts have said that food shortages play in a big part in the increased appearance of these “ghosts ships.”
Director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Japan, Professor Jeffrey Kingston, said the arrival of these “ghost ships” is a “barometer for the state of living conditions in North Korea — grim and desperate.”
The communist regime has been responsible for several famines resulting in millions of deaths.
“Plus, North Korea doesn’t have enough gasoline anymore, so they’re running out of fuel,” Isozaki added.
According to the newspaper, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un started to actively promote fishing as a growth industry which started this year by ordering a “dynamic drive for catching fish” with “modern fishing vessels.”
“Fishermen usually have a set quota, and they used to sell the seafood to China,” Toshimitsu Shigemura, emeritus professor at Waseda University told the Washington Post.
“Now with the new sanctions, they can’t sell the seafood overseas, but the quota still exists, so fishermen need to go fishing. They probably stay out too long to catch more fish,” he added.
According to FAO, the assessment of crop damage is not yet available but early estimates suggest “about 50,000 hectares of cropland have been severely affected by the prolonged dry spell.”
Kingston said the appearance of these ships is a sign of desperation as North Koreans try to make up for the food shortages.
“These rickety vessels are unsuitable for the rough seas of the Sea of Japan in autumn, and one imagines that far more are capsizing that we will never know about,” Kingston told Business Insider.
Kazuhiro Asai, head of the Oga branch office of the Akita Fisheries Cooperative Association, said that they feel unsettled about the North Korean recent appearances.
“In the past, there was a case where North Koreans came to kidnap someone nearby, and that was scary. I guess these guys aren’t out to kidnap, but we don’t know what they’re here for, and that makes me worried,” Asai told the newspaper.
Other people living on the Japanese coast said that along with missiles in the water, these “ghost ships” are another thing they have to watch out for from their hostile neighbor.
“We have an uneasy feeling,” Sakari Nishimura of Yamagata Prefectural Fisheries Cooperative Association, told the newspaper.
“These days, we not only need to watch out for missiles falling from the sky; now we have to watch out on the sea, too,” he added.
Dear reader,
We have a little favor to ask of you. We work hard to deliver important and interesting articles to you. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you!
From NTD.tv