There are fears 22 North Koreans may have been executed after they were returned home having been picked up in boats in waters belonging to South Korea, a news report said yesterday.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified intelligence source in Seoul saying that there has been a widespread rumor in the area where the 22 came from that all were shot dead last week by the hard-line communist state.
They had been sent back home by South Korea on Feb. 8 after being found drifting in two rubber dinghies in the South's waters, the report said.
"Residents in South Hwanghae are in shock as all the 22 people, instead of being sent to prison, were shot to death," a source from South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) was quoted as telling Yonhap.
"They believe the 22 people were caught trying to defect to the South," the source said.
The 22 -- eight men and 14 women -- were picked up by South Korean authorities in the South's waters, although the group said they had not been attempting to seek asylum and were fishing.
"In the course of interrogation, the 22 said they were swept by currents and they were not defectors. They strongly demanded they must be sent back home," an NIS spokesman said.
The NIS said in a statement it believed the group was not seeking asylum and instead were at sea to collect clams and oysters -- though without the necessary authorization of the North Korean maritime agency.
They were apparently hoping to take advantage of lax security during the Lunar New Year break to fish, but instead drifted into the South's waters, the report said.
They were repatriated via an overland route the following day, the NIS said, and may have been executed for fishing without permission.
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