TOKYO: Ahead of the anniversary of the massive fire-bombing of Tokyo towards the end of World War II, North Korea has taken the opportunity to vent its anger at Japan for its brutal colonial rule.

The Korean Forced Labor Victims and Families Association released a statement on Monday reminding Japan that it “forcibly took away some 8.4 million young and middle-aged Koreans, sending them to battlefields of the war of aggression and places of suffering, or as labor slaves, and also forcing them to commit mass murder during massive air raids by the US military.”

“Nearly 80 years have passed since our country was liberated from the brutal colonial rule of Japanese imperialism, but the screams of the blood-soaked souls of those who were forcibly abducted by the Japanese Empire and taken to cold, foreign lands still ring out loud and clear today.”

The US fire-bombed Tokyo and Osaka on March 10 and 13, 1945, killing as many as 200,000 people, although the exact figure has not been determined. The raids wiped out large parts of Japan’s two main cities.

North Korea claims the Japanese confined Koreans in those cities, resulting in 10,000 Korean deaths, and then buried them in mass, unmarked graves.

“The tragic fate of the Korean victims, who were unable to return even as skeletons to the mountains and rivers of their hometowns, is entirely a direct product of the forced abduction crimes that arose because of the Japanese Empire’s occupation and colonial rule of Korea. Successive Japanese authorities have shown no remorse, showing no interest in uncovering the truth about the inhumane atrocities committed at that time.” These, the North says, were crimes against humanity.

“Japan must remember that the more it evades national responsibility for crimes against humanity, erases the traces of its past acts of aggression and instils a distorted view of history into future generations, the more it will leave its name in the international community as a shameless nation that has no idea about ethics or morality, and will only continue to pay reparations for its crimes,” the statement said.

“The inhumane atrocities committed by the Japanese Empire against our people during the US air raids on Tokyo and Osaka will surely be accounted for.”