A spokesman for the Central Committee of the Red Cross Society of the DPRK released a statement on April 12 in connection with the fact that the south Korean authorities lured and abducted a group of DPRK employees in broad daylight.

The statement said:

The south Korean authorities, on April 7, reporting about the “group defection” of DPRK’s employees of a restaurant in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province of China, claimed “they accepted the employees from a humanitarian stand by respecting their will”.

They are also building up public opinion to give impression that the case of “group defection” is a “substantial effect” of the implementation of “UN resolution on sanctions against the north” and a reflection of the “skepticism of the DPRK people about their system and aspiration of the northerners for south Korean society”.

Refuting it as an unprecedented group abduction committed by the gangsters of the puppet Intelligence Service, the statement clarified the following stand:

1. We sternly denounce the group abduction of the citizens of the DPRK as a hideous crime against its dignity and social system and the life and security of its citizens.

The recent case of “group defection” cooked up by the puppet group is a crucial provocation against the DPRK which can never be tolerated as it is an unbearable insult to the people of the DPRK.

2. The puppet group should apologize for the hideous group abduction and immediately send all of the abductees back to the DPRK.

The puppet group has to ferret out criminals and the back-stage manipulators who took the citizens of the DPRK to south Korea by employing all sorts of appeasement, deception and gimmicks and bring the criminals to justice in the DPRK.

We have detailed information of how the gangsters of the puppet Intelligence Service lured and appeased the citizens of the DPRK to south Korea and which country connived it and which country in Southeast Asia they were taken through as well as the method used for the purpose.

The south Korean puppet forces should not keep the citizens of the DPRK away from contact with outside under the pretext of “protection of safety” and appease and pressurize them in the back room but unconditionally accept our demand and send back those innocent nationals of the DPRK without delay.

3. In case the puppet group does not send them back, it will have to pay a high price for the serious consequences to be entailed by its action.

The south Korean authorities should bear in mind that unless they apologize for the hideous abduction and send those abductees back, they will face unimaginable serious consequences and severe punishment.

KCNA