By KUNA
Tokyo : A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, Seoul’s media reported Monday, citing a source.
Two fishing boats carrying the North Koreans — 14 women and eight men, including three teenagers — drifted into the western waters off South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island on February 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention of defecting, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The North Koreans were residents of the southern coastal province of South Hwanghae, who went to sea to collect clams and oysters without authorization, the agency said, adding that the drifters were all executed immediately after returning home early last week.
The North Korea’s National Security Agency shot and killed them secretly, the report said.
Joint interrogation by the police and the National Intelligence Agency found that they were neither asylum seekers nor spies, it said.
“People in the province are shocked by the fact that all of the 22 people were shot and killed without exception, such being sent to a prison camp,” Yonhap quoted the source as saying.
Four North Koreans claimed asylum after their wooden vessel drifted onto South Korea’s island in May last year, following the defection of five North Koreans drifting on a small vessel in 2006.
Given the large number of North Koreans spotted aboard, suspicions had been raised that they were seeking asylum but were returned. South Korea is set to revise its decade-long sunshine policy toward North Korea as the incoming conservative government of Lee Myung-bak plans to take a tougher stance on North Korea with calls to improve its human rights conditions and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.