Special committee to obtain accurate data on South Korean repatriates on Sakhalin

YUZHNY-SAKHALINSK, June 21 (RIA Novosti correspondent Pyotr Tsyrendorzhiyev) - A South Korean governmental committee arrived on Sakhalin Island Tuesday to learn more about Koreans, now seeking to repatriate, interned in the south of the island when it was under Japanese rule, the regional administration said.

"The delegation will work on Sakhalin for two weeks in order to find out the number of people who would like to return to South Korea and also to get more accurate data on those who would like to stay and receive compensation for having been forced by Japan to toil in the south of the island," a Russian official said.

After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, 30-40 thousand Koreans were brought to the south of Sakhalin to work as miners and woodcutters and build a railroad. After the island was transferred to Russia in August of 1945, Japan abandoned the Korean population of Sakhalin.

Some of the first generation laborers began returning to Korea only at the end of the 1990s. About 3,000 have left the island thus far, but there are still many more seeking to return to home.