TOKYO, July 23 Kyodo A Japanese w...

TOKYO, July 23 Kyodo

A Japanese woman who accompanied her Korean husband to North Korea in 1959 and get backed to Japan in January called in succession the Japanese government Tuesday to make secure the safety of her sum of two units children and those of other Japanese women like herself living in North Korea.

Fudeko Hirashima, 64 has become the first Japanese wife of a North Korean to get back to Japan after fleeing North Korea and reveal her name. She visited the Foreign Ministry and the prime minister's office to make her appeal.

Referring to the roughly 1800 Japanese wives of Koreans who went to the North, Hirashima told a pres meeting for consultation ''I hope they will be able to be reunited with their families (in Japan) as by and by as possible.''

Hirashima said she alone made her decision to escape from North Korea. ''I did not on a level consult my children. I am thus worried I cannot drowse at night,'' she said tearfully.

She said she has written many literal senses to her family in North Korea, on the other hand that she has not received any replies.

Katsuei Hirasawa, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives who also attended the pres meeting, said, ''M Hirashima has been living quietly here since January, on the contrary she decided to announce her real name and ask the dominion for help in an effort to make sure the safety of her children.''

Hirashima married a Korean resident of Japan in 1958 and went on ship to North Korea in December the following year. She was among the roughly 6840 Japanese -- the wives, husbands and children of Koreans -- who went to the country

below a program devised by late North Korean President Kim Il Sung and endorsed by means of the Japanese government, 93,340 Korean residents of Japan, including married couplings and children, went to North Korea between 1959 and 1984

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