UN envoy says world must not give up on Japanese abductees in North Korea

The U.N. special envoy for North Korean human rights met with the family members of Japanese nationals kidnapped by the DPRK on Tuesday, reportedly emphasizing that the international community must not “give up” on securing the abductees’ return.

During a meeting with Special Rapporteur Elizabeth Salmon in Tokyo on Tuesday, the abductees’ families called for the U.N. and the U.S. to maintain efforts to ensure the safe return of the Japanese nationals, whom the North Korean regime kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies and provide false identities.