Civic group asks U.N. for meeting with S. Koreans abducted by N. Korea

SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- A local civic group said Wednesday it has asked the U.N. to arrange a meeting with South Koreans abducted by North Korea.

Choi Sung-yong, head of the support group for families of abductees, said he submitted a formal request to Signe Poulsen, head of the Seoul office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, on Tuesday.

Choi's organization believes 21 out of 516 South Koreans abducted by North Korea after the Korean War are still alive and are residing in Pyongyang.

Citing his own source, Choi claimed North Korea will take the families of a recent group of North Korean defectors to a U.N. Human Rights Council Session in Geneva in March and demand a meeting with those who left for the South.

They are relatives of employees of a North Korean restaurant in China who defected to South Korea en masse last April. North Korea has argued South Korea abducted them.

To counter that, Choi said he will send the South Korean families to the same U.N. session, where they will help spread the word on North Korea's atrocities and put pressure on Pyongyang to set up meetings between the abductees and their kin.

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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