The South Korean government held its own ceremony in Japan for the second year in a row to commemorate Koreans forced to work at Japan's UNESCO-listed Sado mines during World War II.

The event took place on Friday morning at a hotel on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, with members of seven bereaved families in attendance.

In a memorial speech, South Korean Ambassador to Japan Lee Hyuk said the ceremony had been arranged to jointly remember the pain and distress of those forced into labor under Japanese colonial rule.

South Korea boycotted a memorial event hosted by Japan for the second consecutive year in response to Tokyo's failure to recognize the forced mobilization of the Korean nationals.

At the event in September, Yukiko Okano, director-general for cultural affairs at Japan's foreign ministry, referred to the Korean victims as "laborers from the Korean Peninsula."

During UNESCO's review of the mines' World Heritage listing last year, Tokyo promised to hold an annual memorial ceremony in honor of the Korean and Japanese laborers.

Seoul consented to the listing on the condition that Tokyo inform international visitors about the full history of the site, including holding the annual memorial and exhibiting the harsh working conditions under which Koreans were forced to toil.