U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer on Thursday visited the site in Niigata where North Korean agents abducted 13-year-old Megumi Yokota in 1977.
Yokota was kidnapped near her home on Nov. 15, 1977, after participating in an extracurricular activity at her junior high school. According to a former North Korean agent, she was taken to North Korea aboard a boat that had been waiting off a beach near her home. Pyongyang claimed in 2004 that she committed suicide in 1994 and turned over what the North said were her remains, which DNA tests in Japan proved otherwise.
Accompanied by Yokota's parents, Shigeru, 73, and Sakie, 70, as well as their supporters and the Niigata mayor, Schieffer toured the street where the girl was believed abducted, her former home and the beach.