Aum Shinrikyo handed over its two facilities in Tokigawa, Saitama Prefecture, to the village Sunday morning, keeping an earlier promise to leave the region.

The 6-year-old twin daughters of Hisako Ishii, formerly a senior Aum member, and seven others were living in one of the facilities. The villagers had demanded that they leave the town because they did not want the children to attend the local school.

In April, the village allowed the daughters to attend a local school for the first term only, on condition that they leave the village by Sunday.

The village is set to buy the facilities and land from Aum for 45 million yen.

All of the nine people who lived in the facilities had left by Sunday. Five of them, including the twins, tried to register their residency in Hasuda city in the prefecture on Aug. 1, but the request was turned down and they have no registration to date.

Aum spokesman Hiroshi Araki, who attended Sunday's handover, apologized to the village for causing trouble and said: "Children have no faults. It's the responsibility of the cult that caused problems in the past."