The statue symbolizing a "comfort" woman drafted by Japan to serve at wartime brothers puts on a yellow knit muffler in the southern city of Gwangmyeong.[Yonhap News Photo]
A Korean victim of Japan's wartime sex slavery died at her home in Xiaogan, in China's Hubei Province, Wednesday, the South Korean government said. She was 94.
Park Cha-soon's death brought the number of survivors down to 39 among a total of 239 known South Korean victims.
Park died of various diseases at about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, local time, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said. She had been treated for spinal stenosis, colitis and cerebral infarction for the past two years, but her symptoms worsened recently.
Historians estimate that more than 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work at front-line brothels for Japanese forces.
Born in North Jeolla Province in 1923, Park was taken to a Japan-dominated region in China in 1942 and was forced to work at brothels for Japanese soldiers in such cities as Nanjing, Hankou and Wuchang before Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.
Park ran away from the military brothel but was unable to return to her hometown, according to the ministry. She has since lived in China, raising an adopted daughter.'
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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