8 bodies found on washed-up boat in Akita

Some bodies have been reduced to bone

It must have been afloat for a long time then !

May they all be properly identified and find peace...

Tragic. The first of many, if the warmongers succeed in their dreadful ambitions.

They left despair and hardship to seek a new life only to perish. They fought and sought for hope. RIP

Or maybe they were just out fishing and got blown off course by some bad weather and never made it back

Doesn't say the condition of the boat, materials on board etc, so it's hard to speculate

kazutsukai: "May they all be properly identified and find peace..."

Their nationality might be identified, I doubt anything beyond that will come to light. NK is not really forthcoming with lists of people who have fled.

They must have been terrible deaths - slow and painful. Those poor people, trying to escape from a hellish life, but they ended up trapped.

The suggestion among several of the posters above is that it was not a fishing boat then? Poor people, either way.

The warmongers will continue to control ordinary people everywhere, as they have throughout history, by force of arms and by devious intelligence. How to keep their fingers from the trigger?

Its incredible and very sad the life of many north Koreans, the only hope they had was to get to the sea on the wooden boat. Incredible

There's no confirmation it came from North Korea - the article says it's a different design than the last one. I doubt there'll be anything left to identify it's origins - it looks very weathered and the poor people aboard reduced to mere bones. What a horrible way to go... RIP

A carbon copy of the same thing that the USA had with Cubans escaping communist rule.

Now Japan deals with North Korean Boat refuges fleeing the DPRK

Is that, in fact, a boat, that thing behind them?

Man....

Eight died and another eight successfuly escaped / infiltrated Japan.

Who knows? Da-kine mysterious boats come and go anytime and disappear even under the nose of Japan Coast Guard and SDF's top secret radars that can detect even an ant in Mars! Lol!

It is a small wooden boat in which 8 people perished. This is a sad event, claps hands and prays.

may their soul rest in peace.....

Educator60:

It seems they are organized in groups of eight.

Just like the number of 2 crews + 6 special forces personnel in their mini subs.

For those unfortunate ones who died , RIP.

Tragic. The first of many, if the warmongers succeed in their dreadful ambitions.

Yes, because life in North Korea would be so pleasant, if it just wasn't for those warmongers...

You do realize that leaving North Korea had been called 'escaping' long before Trump took office right?

The only evidence presented in the article is Hangul writing; which is used in both parts of Korea. On the evidence presented there is nothing to prove it came from North Korea. Theoreticaly it could have come from the South. It may well be that the brand of cigarettes is from the North but the article doesn't seem to bother with little details like proof or evidence.

"The possibility of any agents disembarking is not zero," said a senior official of the Metropolitan Police Department's public security division, adding the conditions of the wooden ships indicate poverty levels in rural areas of North Korea.

I am sure that no 'North Korean' agent would travel so far, become emaciated and then attempt espionage in Japan.

10 boats this month, 55 this year so far!!!