Twelve Japanese men and women orphaned in China during World War II, including a woman living in Russia, arrived in Japan on Thursday in search of relatives.
Nina Polyanskaya from Russia arrived at Narita International Airport in the morning, while three men and eight women arrived at the airport later in the day from China.
Polyanskaya, who is in her 60s, lives alone in Yekaterinburg in central Russia. She survived a Russian attack on the Japanese military in Mudanjiang, China, on Aug. 17, 1945, but her parents were killed.
A Russian soldier found her and took her to the Russian city. Due to anti-Japanese sentiment in those days, she was raised as Chinese after she was accepted at an orphanage. She said she was not told she was Japanese until about the age of 12.
It is the first time the presence of a Japanese "war orphan" has been confirmed in a place other than China, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
"I hope I can find (some members of my) family. But I do not have many expectations," she said before leaving for Japan.