Teenage A-bomb victim of Hiroshima identified through DNA analysis
Baku, December 15, AZERTAC
A victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II has been identified as a 13-year-old girl through DNA testing, the first successful case of A-bomb victim identification using DNA, Kyodo reported citing the Hiroshima city government.
The hair and ashes kept on the premises of the Peace Memorial Park were found to belong to Hatsue Kajiyama, who went missing after the U.S. bombing of the western Japan city on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing stages of the war.
The hair was preserved with the ashes recorded as Michiko Kajiyama in the burial registry for unclaimed ashes. However, Shuji, the 60-year-old nephew of the victim, informed the city that the name may have been listed incorrectly and requested that the city verify the information.
Between late November and earlier this month, Kanagawa Dental University extracted DNA from the hair and compared it with that of Hatsue's 91-year-old younger sister, confirming that it belonged to Hatsue, the city said.
There are unclaimed ashes of 70,000 victims kept inside a memorial mound, with hair samples also preserved inside each urn for about 10 of them, according to the city.
The city plans to run DNA testing of hair samples if requested by the family of the victims in the future.
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