‘Ghost Boat’ With 2 Heads, 5 Bodies On Board Washes Up On Japanese Island

The heads of two people plus another five bodies were found on Saturday morning in a wooden “ghost boat” off the shore of Japan’s Sado Island. The island is about 80 kilometers (49 miles) off the Niigata prefecture. The number of victims may be seven.

Letters and numbers written in Korean on the outside of the hull indicate that the boat and its grisly cargo are from North Korea, approximately 800 km from Sado Island. Japanese Coast Guard official Kei Chinen said the cause of death is under investigation. Bad weather prevented police from boarding the boat until Saturday.

The discovery of ghost boats is not an unusual event in the Sea of Japan. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese daily newspaper, over 150 North Korean fishing vessels have washed up on Japanese shores or have been found drifting in Japanese waters in 2019.

The predominant theory is that some North Korean fishermen will travel far out to sea in their old and poorly equipped boats to satisfy the government's mandate to gather larger catches. The boats lack modern electronics to call for help if they run out of fuel or have mechanical problems and are likely not to fare well in bad weather.

An empty boat washing up on the shore indicates that the crew managed to escape the boat and were rescued or drowned. When bodies are found, the name “ghost boat” is an apt moniker. On rare occasions, the boat’s passengers are found alive leading to an uncertain fate if they are returned to North Korea.

Fishing boats that have drifted too far out into the seas is one possible source of the ghost boats, but another "theory" is that the boats were occupied by desperate people trying to escape the tyranny of North Korean leader Kim Yong Un. According to Sky News, 44 ghost boats full of dead people, often in advanced stages of decomposition, washed up in 2016. The previous year's count was 14.

In 2017 the ghost boat count rose to over 100 leading some experts to see this as a clear sign of Kim’s weakening grip on the county under pressure and sanctions from the international community.

Hazel Smith, professorial research associate at London’s School of African and Oriental Studies, told Business Insider, “Security is disintegrating. There was always an incentive for people to get hold of a boat to try to fish and come back and sell it and make some money, but security was always extremely tight. You had mined beaches you had surveillance on the coast, so the fact that this is happening is not a surprise economically, people are taking the opportunities while they can."

She added, “What it shows also is the disintegration of the state’s ability to stop people going out in boats.” None of this can explain why two heads and five bodies were found in this particular case but it seems that something is at play in North Korea other than the "Christmas Surprise" that has not yet been “delivered”.