Two female Taiwanese students were killed in the dormitory of a Japanese language school in Tokyo yesterday. At present no motive for the murders has been ascertained, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
Su Qi-cheng (蘇啟誠), deputy secretary-general of the ministry’s Association of East Asian Relations, said the ministry has requested that the police in Japan, who are investigating the incident, keep Taiwanese officials up to date with the latest developments
According to Japanese media -reports, the two students, 23-year-old Lin Chih-ying (林芷瀅) and 25-year-old Julia Chu (朱立婕), were found covered in blood in the bedroom and doorway of a dormitory at the Intercultural Institute of Japan in the Taito area of eastern Tokyo.
Photo: CNA
One of the women died at the scene, the other a short time later after being rushed to hospital. Both had been reportedly stabbed in the neck.
The Japanese media reported that police in Tokyo received a report of the incident at 11am yesterday from two teachers at the Intercultural Institute of Japan, after being informed by two male Taiwanese students that they were unable to contact the women.
A police search of the dormitory failed to turn up keys to the apartment or the murder weapon, according to Japanese media reports, with the police quoted as saying that the women died from knife wounds to the carotid artery from which they bled to death.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson James Chang (章計平) said Taiwan’s representative office in Tokyo had held an urgent meeting and set up a special task force to handle the case, adding that the ministry would provide all necessary assistance to the -families of the two students.
“An emergency task force has been formed by Taiwan’s representative office in Tokyo to look into the details of the incident,” Chang said. “Our staff has arrived at the scene to collaborate with the local police.”
Members of the victims’ families arrived in the city late yesterday.
Lin’s father told reporters in Greater Taichung yesterday that when he last spoke to his daughter on Wednesday night by Internet phone, she said she was planning to visit Hokkaido in northern Japan the next day. He said it was hard for him to accept that just one day later she had died.
The father added that he believed the women were killed by someone they knew, noting that the dormitory has a security system that requires an electronic security card for entry and exit.
Additional reporting by CNA
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