80 Yrs On, Ex-Iwo Jima Residents Remain Unable to Return

   Tokyo, April 7 (Jiji Press)--The impact of World War II on Ioto, widely known as Iwo Jima, remains evident as former islanders are still barred from returning to the Pacific island 80 years after it was ravaged by heavy fighting.
   Former residents were forced to evacuate from the island, now part of the village of Ogasawara in Tokyo, in 1944, before the Battle of Iwo Jima the following year that took the lives of almost 30,000 Japanese and U.S. troops. Since then, they have only been allowed to visit the island several times a year for visiting graves and other activities.
   "I hope the government will respond to the wishes of former island residents who were forced to leave their hometowns," said Meiji Gakuin University professor Shun Ishihara, an expert on the history of the island.
   Ioto was placed under U.S. military rule along with islands in the Ogasawara archipelago in 1946. It was returned to Japan in 1968, but the government declared in 1984 that general residents could not settle on the island because of volcanic activity and the scarcity of farmland due to the presence of a Self-Defense Force base.
   "It is abnormal that the residents of an island remain unable to return for security reasons throughout the period from World War II to the Cold War and the post-Cold War era," Ishihara said. "The effects of the war are still clear even now."

(2025/04/07-13:52)

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