Japanese government condemns the brutal killing of its two citizens by the Islamic State.
Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto were brutally held hostage by the Islamic State's terrorist organization, which demanded a ransom of $200 million, the Telegraph reported.
When the ransom's deadline passed, the Islamic State published a video featuring the announcement of Yukawa's execution.
The three-minute long video showed Goto, a Japanese journalist and war veteran correspondent, holding an image of the beheaded corpse Yukawa, his fellow hostage, .
Goto is heard saying that Yukawa had been killed. Furthermore, he states that the demanded ransom is now replaced with the prisoner in exchange for him and that the terrorist group had demanded that a female suicide bomber detained in Jordan be freed.
In the English language, Mr. Goto forcefully blamed his co-hostage's death on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and told the dead man's family not to give up.
Through a televised statement, Abe described the brutal at as an unforgivable and outrageous act. He said, "We demand the release of Mr. Goto, the remaining hostage. I am very angry."
In previous reports, Japan strongly established that they will never give in to the acts of terrorism. Both hostages were seen wearing orange jumpsuits, like those that were worn by all captives in the previous IS hostage videos.
Yukawa was captured by the Islamic militants in August 2014 right after he arrived in Syria to fulfill a plan which he was able to describe as a launching of a security company. Goto went to Syria in October 2014 to secure Yukawa's release.