The Japanese government has provided to Seoul part of a list of victims of the 1945 sinking of the Japanese naval vessel, Ukishima Maru, which was on a mission to repatriate Koreans in the wake of World War Two. 

The foreign ministry said on Thursday that after holding a series of negotiations with Tokyo to acquire the list of those who were on board the vessel, it was able to obtain a part of the list. 

Out of the total 75 documents related to the ship’s sinking, Japan has provided to Seoul 19 documents which have been internally investigated. Details of the documents have yet to be confirmed but they are likely to include information on those who were on board the ship. 

The foreign ministry said Japan plans to provide the remaining documents after completing internal probes. 

The Ukishima Maru departed from the Port of Ominato in Aomori Prefecture for Busan on August 22, 1945, carrying Korean Japanese who wished to return to Korea following Korea’s independence from Japan. 

Two days after its departure, the vessel exploded while trying to make a stop in Kyoto’s Port of Maizuru. Most of the passengers were said to be victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor. 

Japan announced that the vessel exploded after coming in contact with a naval mine and that of some 37-hundred abroad, 524 passengers had died. 

However, victims’ families believe that Japan intentionally bombed the vessel and that more than three-thousand of some eight-thousand passengers had been killed.