A former solider in the Japanese Imperial Army, who hadn't been seen by his family since he went off to fight in the Second World War and was declared dead in 2000, has resurfaced in Ukraine and is returning to Japan to see his relatives after 60 years.
Ishinosuke Uwano, now 83, is expected to arrive in Japan tomorrow, accompanied by his Ukrainian son, to visit his surviving relatives in Iwate, about 290 miles north-east of Tokyo.
Suminori Arima, in charge of locating war veterans lost overseas for the health and welfare ministry, declined to say exactly where Uwano had been for the past six decades, nor why he had not been in touch with his Japanese family in all that time.
The Japanese soldier was on the island of Sakhalin in Russia's far east when the war ended in August 1945, and was last reported seen on the same Pacific island in 1958. Arima did not say who reported seeing him there. Public broadcaster NHK said he was drafted in 1943 to fight in Sakhalin.
He failed to return to Japan and didn't contact any of his relatives there. In 2000, Uwano's family agreed to register him as having died in the war.
Kyodo News agency said Uwano, who moved to Ukraine in 1965 and now has three children, is currently in Zhitomir, a city about 90 miles west of Kiev.
The government believes about 400 former Japanese soldiers remain in the former Soviet Union, including 40 who have been identified.
