Twenty years after five Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in 1978 returned home, the families of another dozen also identified by the Japanese government as having been taken are growing older and worried that time is running out to bring their loved ones back home.
On Oct. 15, 2002, five victims between the ages of 43 and 47 arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to a tearful welcome. That had followed the first-ever meeting between the leaders of both countries the previous month, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met in Pyongyang, and the latter admitted his country had abducted Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.
North Korea’s admission that it had a policy of abducting Japanese nationals and forcing them to train its agents in Japanese language and culture stunned the world and spurred international headlines and sympathy for their plight. But the fate of 12 others the Japanese government is sure were abducted is still unclear, and questions remain about hundreds of others still missing who may have been taken to or kept in North Korea against their will.