Blues Forteana ₳ Iggy Makarevich, AAS, LMNO

I learned of the ghost ships in a yt comment for the Lex interview of Yeonmi Park.

It’s pretty weird, and pretty sad.

I feel so sorry for them.

Japan: See inside the mysterious ‘North Korean ghost ships’

Ruptly
Dec 8, 2015

In the last two months at least 12 mysterious wooden ships have been found drifting along the coast of Japan. Ruptly sent a cameraman to investigate two of the 12 boats located at a harbour in Wajima, Tuesday.

The mystery of North Korean “ghost ships” | Undercover Asia | Full Episode

CNA
Sep 23, 2019

Uncover hard truths in the underbelly of Asia. Fishing ships from North Korea, discovered with dead bodies onboard, have been washing up on Japan’s shores. We investigate why there has been a spike in the number of these “ghost ships”. ================= ABOUT THE SHOW: CNA’s flagship investigative series Undercover Asia shines a light on some of the darkest corners of our society, and digs deep into the most pressing social-economic and political issues of our time. =================

North Korea’s Ghost Ships | 101 East

Al Jazeera English
Dec 12, 2019

A growing number of North Korean fishing boats are washing up on the shores of Japan. Sometimes there are survivors but often they carry a tragic cargo of corpses from the so-called “Hermit Kingdom”. Shizuo Sato recalls the day he made a grim discovery on Japan’s west coast. “We’ve known of many ghost ships found in this area,” he says. “We all thought that if it’s a dead body, it must be a North Korean.” These mysterious “ghost ships” are a diplomatic, logistical and financial nightmare for Japan, costing millions of dollars in police investigations, clean-up operations and repatriation of survivors and human remains. In December 2017, eight North Korean fishermen washed up dead on Japan’s Oga peninsula. The remains of the fishermen are still in limbo. For now, they are being kept at a temple by a local monk, Ryosen Kojima. “The eight bodies were cremated and the ashes are temporarily kept here,” says Ryosen. “I imagine the crews died with unimaginable fear.” While analysts debate what the ghost ships may reveal about the secretive nation, in Japan, the shipwrecks remind some of a dark past when North Korean spies abducted Japanese citizens. “We’ve been warned not to get too close to North Korean ships, as they might do something bad to us,” says Ken Honma, a fisherman who spends nine months of each year in a fishing zone about 500 kilometres (311 miles) from the North Korean port city of Chongjin. 101 East investigates North Korea’s ghost ships.

This is weird, but in NK, weird is SOP.

Tons of vids on these sad sacks.