UN requests confirmation of ”enforced and involuntarily disappeared persons”; North Korea refuses to confirm whether they are alive or dead

A UN agency that deals with enforced disappearances has designated missionary Choi Chung-gil, who has been forcibly detained in North Korea for more than 10 years, and North Korean defector Kim Chol-ok, who was forcibly repatriated to North Korea, as "victims of enforced disappearances."