In a remote village in China, people are still suffering the effects of a Second World War chemical warfare experimentation program by Japan's secretive 'Unit 731.'

CTV's Beijing correspondent, Steve Chao, recently visited the town of Jia Yi Chun, where many of the senior citizens are still dealing with the fallout.

The experiments began in the heat of war, when Japan dropped bombs laced with biological diseases in fields around unsuspecting Chinese villages.

Tens of thousands of people died immediately of what was then a mystery illness. Farmland and water was poisoned for years to come.

Even today, the biological agents used in the bombs remain a mystery. Yearly tests of rats have come up with some possibilities -- anthrax, typhoid, dysentery, even the plague -- but no definitive answer.

People well into their seventies are still suffering, their limbs now rotting away from the mysterious infection.

"It started when I was 15," Li Meitou told Chao. "It hurts so much, I can't even describe the pain."

Japan has never officially acknowledged the tests, but this year their researchers helped China dig up unexploded biological weapons.

And now Chinese officials have joined international activists in calling for Japan to own up to alleged war crimes.

Canadian activist Thekla Lit, the founder and co-chair of the Canada Association for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II in Asia, is hoping the efforts will pay off.

"I hope the Japanese government can face squarely with this chapter of history because only with redress can we have reconciliation," she told Chao.