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SOUTH HAMGYONG, NORTH KOREA - AUG. 16: A Japanese group on Sunday visited the graves of relatives who died in what is now North Korea during the chaos at the end of World War II. "I could finally come," said Yasuko Irie, 73, holding a family photo and making an offering of rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture where her deceased father, Minoru, hailed from. "I wanted to come while my mother was still alive but I think they have met in heaven." Irie and others visited burial sites at the Ryongsan cemetery in Pyongyang after receiving approval last month for the visit from North Korea, which has no diplomatic relations with Japan. The group arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday and will stay there until next Tuesday. Yasuo Nagashima, 78, who was visiting North Korea for the second time to offer prayers for an elder sister who died in 1946, said, "I hope there will be a way where bereaved families can visit the graves numerous times." Japanese family members have been traveling to North Korea since 2012, after North Korea agreed with the Japanese government to let bereaved families and relatives in Japan visit the sites in an apparent move to improve relations. An estimated 34,600 Japanese are believed to have died of hunger or disease around the end of the war in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, which was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945. According to 83-year-old returnee Tomoya Sato, who heads the group, more than 2,400 Japanese were buried at Ryongsan cemetery.