Photo/Illutration Sakie Yokota, left, Shigeru Yokota, center, and Shigeo Iizuka in February 2016. Iizuka stepped down as the head of a group of families of relatives who were abducted by North Korea. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A twin younger brother of Megumi Yokota, a symbolic figure in Japan’s quest to resolve the decades-long abduction issue with North Korea, has taken over as head of a group representing families of the victims. 

He replaced Shigeo Iizuka, who at age 83 decided to step aside on grounds of ill health.

Takuya Yokota, 53, was selected at an emergency meeting in Tokyo on Dec. 11 to continue the fight to bring back abductees snatched to teach Japanese language, customs and culture to North Korean spies.

North Korea carried out a spate of abductions in the 1970s and ’80s. Megumi was a 13-year-old junior high school student in Niigata when she was seized in 1977.

“In my memory, my sister still remains 13,” Yokota said. “I want to strive to reunite my sister with our mother while her health is still good.”

Iizuka, the elder brother of Yaeko Taguchi, another abductee, took over the position in 2007 after Yokota’s father, Shigeru, stepped down as the first head of the group due to his deteriorating health.

Shigeru died in June last year aged 87.

Iizuka had been complaining of ill health since 2017, which forced him to often cut short his attendance during news conferences and gatherings, including a meeting of the group and its supporters held in November.

He was admitted to a hospital in mid-November for undisclosed health reasons.

At the emergency meeting on Dec. 11, Iizuka’s son, Koichiro, 44, informed the group that his father was no longer fit enough to continue with the task.

Yokota had served as head of the group’s secretariat before he became the group’s new leader. Koichiro will lead the secretariat as Yokota’s successor. Their appointments went into force on Dec. 11.

The pair have worked together in recent years to call on the United States and other countries to help Japan resolve the thorny issue.

The situation is made more complicated by the fact that Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations.

In September 2002, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made a landmark visit to Pyongyang. The following month, five abductees arrived back in Japan from North Korea.

Tokyo has said it suspects that as many as 17 Japanese nationals, including the five, were abducted to North Korea.

Pyongyang later informed Japan that it had no record of other abductees and that Megumi Yokota died years earlier.

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