Kidnap victim Yaeko Taguchi was alive and well in Pyongyang apparently after the North in 2002 allowed what it claimed were the five surviving Japanese abductees to return home, a Cabinet member indicated Thursday.
Separately, a spokesman for kin of South Korean abductees said Taguchi is still alive and disclosed her whereabouts.
"We have received information that she was doing fine six or seven years ago" in Pyongyang, Hiroshi Nakai, state minister in charge of the abduction issue, told reporters.