ANKARA

China marked the 12th National Memorial Day on Saturday to honor the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, according to state-run media.

Despite cold weather, thousands gathered while dressing in dark attire at the public square of the Memorial Hall in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province, Xinhua News reported.

Sirens sounded at 10:01 am (0201GMT), prompting drivers in the downtown area to halt their vehicles and honk in unison, while pedestrians paused to observe a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims.

The national flag was flown at half-mast in front of the crowd that included survivors.

In 1937, the Japanese army captured Nanjing, the then capital of the Chinese Republic. China said more than 300,000 people were killed by Japanese forces.

Japan continues to dispute that a massacre of that scale took place, while much of the world has long accepted its occurrence, despite varying figures about how many were killed.

In 2015, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, accepted Chinese documents supporting claims of Japanese “atrocities” in Nanjing in its Memory of the World register -- a move that drew objections from Tokyo.