China will this year finish renovating a former concentration camp in Shenyang, where Japanese troops detained more than 2,000 World War II prisoners from different countries.

The cultural heritage bureau in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, said it was turning the site into a museum to record war history and tell the tale of Japanese wartime atrocities.

According to the 54-million-yuan (6.9 million U.S. dollars) plan, the museum will cover 12,900 square meters and will include a two-storey building, three bungalows and a water tower, all original camp buildings, and a square that will be embedded between the two-story buildings and a bungalow where the Japanese wardens used to live.

Two walls will be constructed in the square inscribed with the names of all the POWs.

The cavernous red-brick buildings with pitch dark corridors and tiny windows are located on Qingguang Street in Dadong District of Shenyang.

It was here that the Japanese military detained more than 2,000 POWs, aged from 18 to 62, from the United States, Great Britain, Netherlands and Australia between November 1942 and August 1945.

Of the POWs kept at the camp, 244 died and many others suffered grievously.

Haunted by their wartime memories, many POWs from Shenyang, known as Mukden 62 years ago, established the "Mukden Survivors Group".

Despite their age, many members of the group have revisited the Chinese city in recent years to mourn for their dead comrades and relive their experiences at the camp, one of the most heavily-protected Japanese WWII camps in Asia.

(Xinhua)