Megumi Yokota

Megumi Yokota was a Japanese citizen who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977 when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least seventeen Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that she is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan. Megumi Yokota was abducted on 15 November 1977 at the age of thirteen while walking home from school in her seaside village in Niigata Prefecture. It's believed that she was abducted because she happened to witness activities of North Korean agents in Japan and so the agents wanted to silence her. North Korean agents reportedly dragged her into a boat and took her straight to North Korea to a facility, where she was taught the Korean language. She was eventually assigned to a university where North Korean spies were taught foreign languages, customs and practices. Here she taught Japanese to spies who were being trained to infiltrate Japan. ¹ In the North in 1986, Yokota married a South Korean national, Kim Young-nam, likely also abducted, and the couple had a daughter in 1987, Kim Eun-gyong. In 2002, North Korea admitted that she and others had been abducted, but claimed that she had committed suicide on March 13, 1994, and returned what it said were her cremated remains. Japan stated that a DNA test showed they could not have been her remains, and her family does not believe that she would have committed suicide. She is believed to have been abducted by Sin Gwang-su. ¹² Megumi Yokota's abduction has been a source of diplomatic tension between Japan and North Korea, and a human rights issue for the international community. Her parents have been leading the movement to rescue the abductees and have met with various world leaders, including former US President George W. Bush, to seek their support. They have also met with their granddaughter, Kim Eun-gyong, who lives in Mongolia with her husband and children, and have expressed their hope to see their daughter again. ²³