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8 men found on boat off Akita say they came from N Korea

15 Comments
By Mari Yamaguchi

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15 Comments
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Fuel is getting very scarce in NK, so more and more fishing boats are putting to sea with only half or quarter full tanks. Expect more of this.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Adrift aboard a wooden boat in open seas, to then land on a country who's currently not in the best terms in decades with the country you're from. And in winter! Must be one awful experience I don't ever want to go through.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

They must have been freezing cold with no working engine on that sea, and so thankful to be picked up in a warm vehicle.

With countless capsized or drifting boats and lost fishermen already, the authorities must be right to worry about mass movements of starving refugees, as too the will the Chinese and Russians on their respective borders.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Twelve more crew went missing.

Are still missing, I highly doubt they "went missing" on their own!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

If they are there really by accident, show then around then send them off.

Show them that we are not starving and we have a good life.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

possible influx of tens of thousands of North Korean evacuees 

more like 10 million.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Boat people the world over.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Should apply for a refugee status, by claiming the fear of being persecuted once back to NK.

Let's see if they are the lucky ones

3 ( +4 / -1 )

This report is very different from the resident, eyewitness interviewed who called police as the one of the fishermen rang his residential home doorbell. The others in Akita prefecture are even more worried that these guys even came into Japan up to their residential homes without being noticed by any surveillance off the coast of Japan. 12 missing...enough for a 2 man special forces team...

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Dango bongNov. 24 03:42 pm JST

send them back

Yes but first treat them well, feed them well, transport them through Japan to a major port ( and so show how comfortable the ordinary Japanese is, evidence of own eyes more believable than any propaganda) then send them home via South Korea so they will see how nice it is their as well.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

If they have any family at all in North Korea, they have to return! The poor family would be tortured, probably killed or starved to death. What a mess of a place.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It makes a mockery of Japanese border control that 12 foreigners can innocently land without being detected!

Imagine a potential conflict where trained soldiers, with malintent, land in force!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Do they get to keep their catch, taken from Japan’s EEZ?

Their story sounds a bit fishy. One month drifting at sea in a half waterlogged boat, and they are healthy and walking?

This is around the 43rd boat that has arrived on the Japan Sea coast in 2017 alone. On the news they were explaining that Kim has ordered the stockpiling of one million barrels of oil for any potential war, so no large boats can get fuel, only poor quality diesel in small quantities. They get sent out fishing repeatedly, in these small wooden hulled boats, but the engines soon clog up with the low-grade diesel.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If they are there really by accident, show then around then send them off.

Show them that we are not starving and we have a good life.

Dangle some food in front of their faces? Cruel.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

send them back

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

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