A South Korean fisherman who was abducted from his boat and taken to North Korea escaped to his home after being held by Pyongyang officials for more than 40 years.
68-year-old Jeon Wook-pyo escaped from North Korea early last month, according to a government official who spoke with the Agence France Presse. He fled to a third country that has not yet been disclosed publicly, where he sent a letter to South Korean President Park Geun-hye in hopes of getting help to return home to Seoul.
"I took a chance to escape the North because I had a growing wish to spend the rest of my life with my relatives and brothers at home," he wrote, according to Yonhap news agency.
Jeon was kidnapped on December 28, 1972 with 25 other fisherman aboard two boats that were overtaken by North Korean spies in the disputed area of the Yellow Sea border, CNN reported.
The other fisherman never returned, and their whereabouts are still unknown, AFP reported.
South Korea has reportedly asked North Korea to free the other 24 abducted men, but Pyongyang steadily maintains that the abductees are not being held against their will.
North and South Korea are still technically at war, due to an armistice the two nations agreed upon at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Since then, abduction has been an issue between Pyongyang and Seoul - Jeon is among more than 500 South Korean citizens who have been abducted by North Korea in the past 60 years. If they return to their homes in the South, officials usually run screening tests to make sure they are not North Korean spies sent to keep an eye on the South.
