This April 20, 2021, file photo shows the North Korean flag fluttering at the North Korea consular office in the Chinese border city of Dandong. Human rights groups call on the government to be step up efforts to resolve issues regarding South Korean abductees and prisoners of war in North Korea on Aug. 30, the International Day of the Disappeared, a day created to remember the victims of enforced disappearance. Reuters-Yonhap

Gov't vows to redouble efforts for victims on International Day of the Disappeared

By Jung Min-ho

When a North Korean agent hijacked a Korean Air flight carrying his father and forced the pilot to land in North Korea in December 1969, Hwang In-cheol was only two years old.

Despite 53 years passing, Hwang and his family remain undeterred in their quest to search for him.

"No matter how long it takes, we will not give up on him because we can't. We hope leaders in the government feel the same," Hwang told The Korea Times on Wednesday.

He spoke on the occasion rights advocates marked as the International Day of the Disappeared, a day created to remember the victims of enforced disappearance, including abductees and prisoners of war. The day reverberates, particularly in South Korea, a country that shares a hostile border with North Korea, where some 100,000 of its citizens have been detained or have died against their will since the Korean War (1950-53).

"Despite our calls for an explanation as to the whereabouts of our citizens and repatriation, North Korea has not shown a responsible attitude," Unification Vice Minister Moon Seung-hyun said in a statement. "That has caused their families indescribable pain."

He characterized what North Korea has done to the victims as "crimes against humanity," promising to intensify pressure, in cooperation with other countries, on the regime to send them all back.

Last week, the ministry announced that it will undergo a major reform, with a plan to launch a team dedicated to resolving the issue early next month.

One of the urgent tasks facing the team is fact-finding. Having been overlooked for decades, South Korea does not even have basic data. According to the last publicly available figures in August 2007, the national intelligence agency said that there were 560 confirmed prisoners of war (POW) alive in North Korea.

"These official figures have not been updated for the past 16 years ... But because of the ROK (South Korea) government's failure to release the updated figures, the 2014 report by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the DPRK (North Korea) recorded an estimated 560 POWs alive in North Korea," Transitional Justice Working Group and a dozen other groups said in a joint statement. "Though already 70 years too late, the government must take measures to investigate and document the grave human rights violations committed by North Korea against the POWs and their families."

According to the groups, there could be as many as 50,000 South Korean POWs and 100,000 civilian abductees in North Korea, which the regime largely denies.

South Korea acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (U.N. Enforced Disappearance Convention) this January. The groups called on the National Assembly to examine two related bills ― one for the protection of victims and their families and the other for the punishment of such crimes ― as they have been temporarily put aside for months.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea also joined the call for legislative action. The commission's chief, Song Doo-hwan, called for the speedy passing of the bills, saying it would strengthen monitoring and cooperation with the Assembly for the cause.