Sonobe Elementary School in Nantan, a mountainous city of about 30,000 people in central Kyoto Prefecture, was temporarily closed on April 14, I was told.
When I visited the school, the usual chorus of children’s cheerful voices was nowhere to be heard. The schoolyard lay poignantly desolate and still.
The chirping of Japanese bush warblers and sparrows echoed across the grounds, only deepening the eerie silence.
A body found on April 13 in a wooded area of the city was identified as Yuki Adachi, an 11-year-old boy who attended the school and had been missing for three weeks, Kyoto prefectural police said on April 14.
Investigators suspect he was the victim of foul play and are now examining the circumstances. His whereabouts became unknown on the morning of March 23.
The news is utterly heartbreaking. What could possibly have happened to an 11-year-old boy with his whole life ahead of him?
Could nothing have been done to prevent such a harrowing fate from befalling him? Thinking of the life he was never able to live, and of the grief of those who loved him, I find myself honestly at a loss for words.
Parents raising children of a similar age must also be gripped by a deep and unsettling fear.
Another disturbing aspect of the tragedy is the flood of unverified information pouring across social media, as so often happens when such incidents occur.
There seems to be no end to the stream of irresponsible posts about cases like this—words as sharp as blades, inevitably wounding others.
Looking back on the history of journalism, we in the newspaper industry, too, have repeated many mistakes.
Yet, it was through bitter lessons learned from those painful failures that today’s more cautious standards of reporting were shaped.
We are now bound by the ethical imperative to convey the facts calmly and exactly as they are, without speculation. The boy’s tragic death, and the social reverberations it has set off, have reminded me once again of the vital importance of that principle.
Along the road leading to Sonobe Elementary School, I noticed a row of cherry trees.
Surely they must have lifted the children’s spirits when they were in full bloom.
Now only a few white petals remain, fluttering in the dry wind. I can only hope the investigation will move steadily forward.
—The Asahi Shimbun, April 15
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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