Photo/Illutration Visitors place photos of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe alongside flowers and other offerings on July 15. (Yuki Shibata)

NARA--A steady stream of visitors continued to offer prayers at the site where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was gunned down one week ago. 

Nara resident Yoshie Ejima, 70, made her second visit to the site on July 15.

“This is somewhere I always pass through, so I am so sad such an incident occurred here,” she said. “While shootings are completely unacceptable, it is regrettable that people, including government officials, could not have helped (the suspect before the incident).”

Abe, 67, was assassinated in front of the Kintetsu Line’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station at around 11:30 a.m. on July 8 while giving a campaign speech.

At the site on July 15 at the exact time of the shooting, there was a line of about 100 people. Many prayed or observed a moment of silence.

Daisuke Suga, 45, a civil servant, visited from Yao, Osaka Prefecture. He placed a sunflower on a special stand for flowers and other offerings.

“I felt I had to come to calm down because I became upset whenever I saw a news report about the incident,” he said.

Yuko Kiyokawa, 39, of Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, came with her husband and 3-year-old daughter.

“I thought a politician being killed by a bullet was something only found in textbooks,” she said. “I just feel so sorry for Akie (Abe’s widow).”

A special team set up by the National Police Agency investigated the shooting site on the morning of July 15.

Meanwhile, the Nara prefectural police the same day said they found wooden planks, concrete blocks and barrels that the suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, said he used for shooting practice in a mountainous area. Plastic fragments believed to be from bullets were also found.

Other police investigators made their second visit to the religious facility in Nara that Yamagami said he shot at on July 7.

(This article was written by Kaho Matsuda and Koki Furuhata.)

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