The UN Human Rights Council on Friday strongly criticized North Korea for the "systematic abduction" of foreigners, after a UN investigation found the country had snatched up to 200,000 foreign nationals from at least 12 countries.
The adopted text decried North Korea's "systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other countries, on a large scale and as a matter of state policy".
Most of them were South Koreans left stranded after the 1950-1953 Korean War, but hundreds of others from around the world have since been taken or disappeared while visiting the secretive Stalinist state.
Marzuki Darusman, the UN’s top investigator on the rights situation in North Korea, has called for the international community to resolve the fate of the abductees, and to refer the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.
[Source: YAHOO NEWS / AFP]
