An informal memorial to a secrity guard struck and killed by a truck at Awa pier in Nago, Okinawa, Japan, as seen June 28, 2024 (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – The Okinawa branch of Japan’s Defense Ministry has asked the Okinawa government to install guard rails at an island port where a security guard was killed and a protestor injured in June.

Shinya Ito, director of the Okinawa Defense Bureau, in a letter to Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki asked for guardrails at the entrance to Awa pier in Nago city. Bureau procurement director Daisuke Misawa filed the request with the prefecture Thursday.

“Being responsible for the roads and ports, we want the prefecture to take measures as soon as possible,” Ito wrote in the letter. “Concretely speaking, we want guardrails to be installed at the entrance of Awa pier to create an environment where private companies can enter and exit smoothly and safely.”

Security guard Yoshikazu Usami, 47, and an unidentified 72-year-old woman “for some reason” stepped into the path of a truck turning left from Awa port on June 28, according to Okinawa Prefectural Police that day. Usami suffered severe head injuries and was declared dead at a local hospital, a police spokesman said.

The entrance to Awa pier in Nago, Okinawa, Japan, on June 28, 2024 (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)

Landfill material was being quarried on Okinawa, trucked to Awa and Motobu ports and moved by ships to the U.S. Marine Corps airfield under construction at Camp Schwab up until July, when the work stopped because of the accident.

The landfill material is used to reclaim a portion of Oura Bay for the new airfield.

Protesters opposed to the U.S. military presence on the island are a regular presence outside both ports.

Ito in the letter also requested that the prefecture “clarify that it is prohibited to enter the facilities of the port” at Motobu.

“The police are conducting investigations about the accident, but we think that these obstructions [by protestors] conducted on a daily basis are in the background of this accident,” Ito wrote.

Work at the site was set to resume fully in August after more than four years’ delay while Tamaki fought the project in Japanese courts. The airfield is planned as a replacement for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in urban Ginowan.

Misawa did not say when landfill material shipments to the new airfield would restart when asked by NHK Okinawa on Thursday.