Ham Jin-woo, a North Korean defector-turned-journalist who disappeared in 2017 near the North Korea-China border, has been officially acknowledged by the government as one of seven South Koreans held captive in the North. The unification ministry included Ham in the list of South Koreans detained in North Korea after consultations with relevant government bodies.
According to the unification ministry’s website, North Korea is detaining seven South Koreans, including three missionaries and four North Korean defectors who acquired South Korean citizenship. Ham was reportedly captured by North Korean authorities while working as a journalist covering border areas between North Korea and China in May 2017.
In December last year, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young announced a decision to add Ham to the roster of South Korean detainees in North Korea. Among the detainees are Kim Jung-wook and two other missionaries who have been held since 2014 on charges of espionage for South Korea, as claimed by Pyongyang. The whereabouts of the other three North Korean defectors, who were detained in 2016, remain unknown, as per Yonhap news agency.
Ham Jin Woo, a journalist, was abducted on May 29, 2017, while reporting on the China-North Korea border. His former colleague and the secretary general of the North Korea-focused human rights group ICNK, Eunkyong Kwon, submitted a report to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances detailing the incident. Ham’s family mentioned that his Korean-Chinese taxi driver witnessed an altercation between Ham and two men from North Korea who forcibly took him across the border.
