SEOUL, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- North Korea has confirmed 21 South Korean prisoners of war and kidnapped citizens held by the communist country are still alive, Seoul officials said Tuesday.
"North Korea has said there are 11 abductees and 10 prisoners of war alive in the North," said an official from the Unification Ministry.
Pyongyang gave the number in response to Seoul's request for information about prisoners of war who went missing during the 1950-53 Korean War and other South Koreans allegedly abducted by the North since the war.
But the figures are far below South Korea's estimate. The South's Red Cross estimates there are 546 POWs still alive in the North in addition to 485 South Korean civilians who have been abducted by the North.
Last week, a daughter of a South Korean fisherman abducted to the North two decades ago made an appeal to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for her father's return to the home country.
In a letter printed as an advertisement on Seoul's daily newspaper, Choi Woo-young asked the North Korean leader to understand her family's suffering and pleaded with him to return her father.
