Yamada parents, fiancée to join Saipan Marathon

Hideki and Kozue Yamada, the parents of missing Japanese sisters Natsuki and Chinatsu, along with the latter’s fiancée, Kenichi Ichikawa, will be among the hundreds of runners that will be joining this year’s Annual Saipan Marathon on Saturday, April 16.

The Yamadas and Ichikawa will use the annual running event to continue to raise awareness about the two Japanese sisters, who went missing two years ago on June 29.

Hideki will be running the 13.1-mile half marathon course, his wife Kozue joined the 10-kilometer race, while Ichikawa, the fiancée of Chinatsu, will be doing the 50K Kanpei course with some of his friends. All of them will be wearing a T-shirt that says “Looking for Yamada Sisters.”

Gun start for the 50K run and marathon is at 4am, while the half marathon begins after an hour. The 10K participants head to the course at 5:45am.

Hideki and Kozue, who runs an apple farm in Nagano prefecture, was on Saipan again in January this year. Chinatsu works as a biotechnologist with a private company in Hokkaido.

The Yamadas and Ichikawa registered to join the Saipan Marathon on their own. The three had been coming back to Saipan since Natsuki and Chinatsu went missing on the night of June 29.

The sisters, who arrived on Saipan on June 28, 2014, were supposed to fly back to Japan at 6am on June 30. The car rental company called Mariana Resort & Spa, where they were staying while on the island, when their vehicle was not returned.

The hotel then informed the Department of Public Safety about their disappearance and immediately formed a search and rescue team to look for the Yamada sisters.

The rental car was found at 12:08pm on Monday at Wing Beach, which is near Mariana Resort, with their personal belongings including passports still intact. They also found clothing and towels, which has the car keys tucked underneath, believed to belong to the sisters.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which joined the search, spotted the raft north of Banzai Cliff at 8:33am on July 2. DPS personnel then recovered the deflated raft at 10:21am the same day.

Natsuki and Chinatsu traveled to Saipan as the former’s late birthday gift to her younger sister.

The Yamadas and Ichikawa are not giving up the search for the sisters and even offered $10,000 cash as reward.