A Korean woman who was forced into sexual servitude by Japan’s World War II soldiers died Monday, an advocacy group for these former sex slaves said Monday. She was 89.

Hwang Seon-sun died at a hospital in South Jeolla Province at around 8 a.m., the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said. The group attributed her death to old age without elaborating further.

Hwang’s death reduced the number of known survivors to 54, the council said.

Hwang was born in 1926 in Jangseong, South Jeolla Province. Her parents died early, leaving her responsible for the care of her younger brother.

At 17, she found herself in one of Japan’s front-line military brothels after a neighbor lured her with promises of a job at a factory in Busan, the second-largest city in South Korea.

She was stationed at a brothel in Nauru, a Pacific island then occupied by Japan, and was beaten and tortured regularly for three years until the Japanese surrendered in 1945. (Yonhap)