Japanese man returns to homeland after 67 years

TOKYO, July 2 (Reuters) A Japanese man left behind on the Russian island of Sakhalin at the end of World War Two smiled and held hands with family members as he returned to Japan for the first time in nearly seven decades.

Yoshiteru Nakagawa, 79, who moved to Sakhalin with his family before the war began, was separated from them in 1945 when his mother and younger sister evacuated to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido and was subsequently not heard from for years.

Riding in a wheelchair, Nakagawa greeted relatives with waves as he arrived at a Hokkaido airport from Sakhalin, then held hands with his younger sisters as they wept.

''I never even dreamed that I'd be able to return to Japan,'' an emotional Nakagawa later told a news conference.

Details of Nakagawa's life after the war were not immediately clear, although one of his sisters was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying that Russian forces had mistaken him for a Japanese soldier after the war and taken him to the mainland.

Nakagawa will spend two weeks in Hokkaido, media reports said.

REUTERS SB RN1115