Addis Ababa, June 28, 2024 (Addis Walta) Japan has lodged a protest at the United States embassy in Tokyo against alleged sex assault cases involving US servicemen in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture.
Two rape cases in December and May reported involving two US Army members stationed in Okinawa.
One of the two cases is that a 21 years old Marin Corps member charged by prosecutors in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, earlier this month with non-consensual sex and assault, allegedly committed in May 2024.
The second case is with a woman who had been “bitten in the mouth” and had taken two weeks to fully recover. Media reports said she had also been choked.
A 25-year-old US airman in Okinawa had been charged in March with raping a teenage girl three months earlier.
Both rape and assault cases have caused public outrage, fueling tensions among residents over US military bases in the region.
Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano met the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, on Friday, requesting disciplinary and preventive measures over the two attacks.
Brigadier General Nicholas Evans, commander of the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, expressed his concern about the “severity” of the allegations, per Al-Jazeera.
Okinawa residents have long complained about the frequent accidents and crime related to the bases including the 1995 case where three US army members raped 12 years old girl.
Some 25,000 US troops are stationed in Okinawa under a bilateral security pact.