Philippine tribes claim remains as Japanese war dead

Looters have dug up the remains of Philippine tribesmen and passed them off as the bodies of Japanese soldiers killed in World War II, tribal leaders say.

RFI/Anthony Terrade

The skeletons of hundreds of Filipino tribespeople have been shipped to Japan since 2008 after being unearthed by grave diggers paid by a Japanese group, Kuentai, they say.

Caesar Dulnuan, a leader of the Ifugao tribal group, said remains had vanished from their community after a Japanese group began searching for war dead in the area.

"We don't know who received the bones. There were a lot of people and they paid them 500 pesos (eight euros) per [skeleton] recovered," he said.

A group of former Japanese soldiers and Philippine tribal leaders formally sought Wednesday a permanent ban on the collection of remains of Japanese soldiers, The Mainichi Daily News reports.

The group maintains that the skeletal remains of members of the Mangyan and Ifugao are being passed off as those of Japanese soldiers.

The non-profit organisation Kuentai was asked to collect the remains of Japanese soldiers dead in the Philippines in 2008. It has since collected the remains of several thousand people.

The bones were later cremated and sent to Japanese national cemeteries for burial, making it impossible to bring them back.

Around 500,000 Japanese soldiers died in the Philippines during World War II with estimates saying the bodies of around 380,000 yet to be recovered.