The South Korean government held its own ceremony in Japan on Monday to commemorate the Koreans forced to work at Japan’s Sado mines during World War II, after boycotting a memorial event that Japan hosted the previous day.

South Korea held the event Monday morning at a site that used to be a lodging for Korean forced labor victims on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. 

The event was attended by South Korean Ambassador to Japan Park Cheol-hee and nine members of victims’ families. 

South Korea boycotted the Sunday ceremony, organized by the local government in Japan, in an apparent response to Tokyo’s plans to send Parliamentary Vice-Minister Akiko Ikuina to the event as its representative. 

In 2022 Ikuina visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, including Class-A war criminals.