The Jeamni Massacre () was a mass murder of 20 to 30 unarmed Korean civilians by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

on April 15, 1919 in Jeamni,

Suwon Suwon (, ) is the capital and largest city of Gyeonggi-do, South Korea's most populous province which surrounds Seoul, the national capital. Suwon lies about south of Seoul. It is traditionally known as "The City of Filial Piety". With a populati ...

Korea, Empire of Japan Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business offici ...

History

During the event, Japanese soldiers brought 20 to 30 Koreans they suspected were linked to the

March First Movement The March 1st Movement, also known as the Sam-il (3-1) Movement (Hangul: 삼일 운동; Hanja: 三一運動), was a protest movement by Korean people and students calling for independence from Japan in 1919, and protesting forced assimilation ...

protests into a church for a meeting. They then opened fire on the civilians, and burned down the church to destroy the bodies and evidence of the incident. They also set fire to nearby civilian homes. Despite the cover-up efforts, Canadian doctor

Frank Schofield Frank W. Schofield (1889–1970) was a British-born Canadian veterinarian and Protestant missionary who was involved in the Korean independence movement against the Japanese Empire. Schofield graduated in 1910 from the Ontario Veterinary Colleg ...

heard news of the event and immediately visited the scene. Schofield then wrote a report titled "The Massacre of Chai-Amm-Ni" and published it in ''The Shanghai Gazette'' on May 27, 1919.

Japanese cover-up

The Japanese lieutenant responsible was disciplined, but a group of senior officers decided to attribute the incident to resistance by local people. In his diary, Japanese commander Taro Utsunomiya wrote that the incident would hurt the reputation of the Japanese Empire and acknowledged that the Japanese soldiers committed murder and arson. Utsunomiya's diary revealed that Japanese colonial authorities met and decided to cover up the incident.

Aftermath

In 2019, a group of 17 Japanese Christians visited the site of the massacre and apologized for the incident on behalf of Japan.

References

{{reflist 1919 in Korea Massacres in Korea Massacres in 1919 Imperial Japanese Army Massacres committed by Japan Anti-Korean violence Japanese war crimes in Korea Church massacres in Asia March First Movement Cover-ups Massacres of protesters in Asia