Hansen's disease sufferers and their supporters have demanded that Tokyo apologize and bury the bodies of babies and fetuses that have been kept in specimen jars after being taking from women held in quarantine by the state in the decades after the war.
The group recently made the request to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, following the discovery of 114 specimens at a medical institute and five state-run sanitariums, originally established to quarantine people with Hansen's disease.
At least 29 of the specimens are believed to be of babies left to die after birth.