The 3rd annual “Day of Remembrance for Abductees” was held at the Seoul Press Center’s International Meeting Hall on June 28.


June 29, 2012
Segye Daily,


“I can still remember my father clearly.”

Only tears for an abductee’s 70 year old daughter

Kang Mi-ja wiped away tears with a cloth as she attended an event marking the “Day of Remembrance for North Korean Abductees,” which was held at the Seoul Press Center yesterday. Her father was abducted by North Korea during the Korean War. “I miss my father. He used ask me everyday when I returned home from school what I had learned,” she recalled. “I would wait for my father everyday with my three-year old sister on my back.”

This year marks the 62nd anniversary of the Korean War, but the pain of the war has not ended for families of the abductees. The families are living witnesses to both the pain of losing their family members and suffering from discrimination because they have family members in North Korea.

This is the third year the Korean War Abductees’ Family Union (KWAFU) has held a day of remembrance for Korean War abductees, and around 500 abductee family members attended the event.

Not a dry eye could be found as family members placed flowers in front of pictures of their loved ones on the platform. One white-haired elderly man with a cane was supported by his grandson as he walked up the platform. The line of people heading up to the platform seemed endless and family members coming down from it could not stop crying.

Some could not move themselves down from the platform as they stroked pictures of their fathers or brothers with their hand.
“I failed the public servant test because of discrimination against my family for having a family member who was an abductee. The police would also come to my house all the time and bother me,” said Nam Song Taek, whose father was abducted when he was four years old. “I haven’t been able to do anything for my father as his child. I don’t want money, I want my father’s honor to be restored.”

There are more than 100,000 Korean War abductees, according to the National Committee on Investigating Abductions during the Korean War. However, only 743 people have been officially recognized as abductees as of June 2012.