SEOUL: More than 100 North Koreans have disappeared after being captured by secret police while trying to defect from the isolated country or even trying to call relatives in South Korea, a human rights group based in South Korea said on Thursday (Oct 31). Seoul.

The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) released a report detailing patterns of enforced disappearances through its study based on interviews with 62 North Korean fugitives in South Korea.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have defected in the decades since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, and many of those captured or repatriated were sent to prison camps or other detention centers before being released.

The group identified 113 people in 66 cases of disappearances, including cases in a file managed with other international organizations, as well as maps depicting transfer routes.

Of the 113, 80 percent, or 90 people, were arrested inside North Korea and the rest in China or Russia, and about 30 percent have disappeared since leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.

Nearly 40 percent of them disappeared after being caught trying to flee the country, while 26 percent took responsibility for the crime of another family member. Nearly 9 percent were accused of being in contact with people in South Korea or other countries.

More than 81 percent disappeared after being transferred and detained by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the North’s secret police known as “bowibu,” according to the report.

An interviewee who defected to the South in 2018 from the Chinese border town of Hyesan said his friend was arrested by the MSS while trying to recover a Chinese mobile phone hidden in the mountains, and was now rumored to have died.

“Once (the MSS) finds call records with South Korea, they are considered serious crimes,” the interviewee stated in the report.