SEOUL, Aug. 29 (Yonhap) — Elizabeth Salmon, the new UN special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, vowed Monday to take a victim-centered approach to addressing the issue.
Salmon delivered the message during a meeting with 11 human rights activist groups in Seoul, including the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) and the families of victims of the northern plane hijacking in 1969, Ethan Hee-seok Shin of the TJWG told Yonhap News Agency.
Salmon said she would meet with various organizations and people to understand the human rights situation in North Korea during her first trip to South Korea and reflect their voices in the next report to the General Assembly in September.
She pledged to contact families of victims, including civilians abducted by North Korea during the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Representatives of the organizations asked Salmon to urge Kim Jong-un’s regime to reveal the fate of two North Korean fishermen who were repatriated by the South Korean government in 2019 in its next report and at the Rights Council. of the United Nations in March 2023.
Salmon arrived in Seoul on Saturday for an eight-day stay, during which she plans to meet senior officials from the foreign and unification ministries, as well as North Korean defectors. It was his first trip to Korea since taking office earlier this month as successor to Tomas Ojea Quintana.
