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| ▲ This file photo, provided by Yonhap News TV, shows Kim Jung-wook, a South Korean pastor who has been detained in North Korea since 2013. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This file photo, taken July 20, 2016, shows Choi Sung-ryong (L), head of a civic group of family members of South Koreans who were detained in North Korea after being abducted after the 1950-53 Korean War, holding a press conference in Seoul, calling on North Korea to release their family members in the North. (Yonhap) |
(LEAD) S Korea-NK detainees
(LEAD) Unification ministry urges N. Korea to immediately send detained S. Koreans back home
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in last 5 paras; ADDS photo)
By Kim Soo-yeon
SEOUL, Oct. 8 (Yonhap) -- The unification ministry on Sunday urged North Korea to immediately send a South Korean pastor and five other nationals back home, condemning their yearslong detention as "illegal and inhumane."
The ministry made the appeal in a statement marking 10 years after South Korean pastor Kim Jung-wook was arrested in Pyongyang in 2013 and then sentenced to hard labor for life on charges of spying for South Korea's spy agency.
In 2014, two other South Korean missionaries, Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil, were also detained in the North on charges of committing what the North's regime called anti-North Korea crimes. Three former North Korean defectors, who had obtained South Korean citizenship, were detained in 2016.
"The government condemns North Korea's illegal and inhumane measure and strongly calls on North Korea, a signatory to the International Covenants on Human Rights, to immediately send them back to their beloved family members," Koo Byoung-sam, spokesperson at the ministry, said in the statement.
He said the government will work closely with the religious community and civic groups to find out the whereabouts of the detainees and win their repatriation, and cooperate with the international community to help resolve the issue.
"If North Korea has any understanding about human rights, it should not avoid the basic human rights issue any longer," Koo said.
President Yoon Suk Yeol has taken a hard-line stance against the North's provocative acts and has stressed the need to make the international community aware of North Korea's human rights abuses.
Last month, the ministry set up a task force to handle South Korean detainees, abductees and prisoners of war in North Korea.
Apart from the detainees, a total of 516 South Koreans had been estimated to be living in the North as of 2003 following abductions in the years since the 1950-53 Korean War, and more than half of them are believed to have since died, the leader of an association of families with abductees in the North claimed Sunday.
Choi Sung-ryong made the claim, citing information from sources in the North, calling on the government to make greater efforts to promote the international awareness of the issue to confirm their fates and ultimately bring them back.
The ministry said it cannot verify Choi's claim, as it is impossible to confirm such numbers without cooperation from the North.
Of an estimated 3,835 South Koreans who were kidnapped by North Korea after the war, 3,310 people were sent back home and nine escaped the repressive regime, with the other 516 South Koreans having yet to return home, according to government data.
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