Tokyo: A United Nations Human Rights Council group has added 12 missing Japanese individuals, not officially recognized as victims of North Korea’s abductions, to a list intended to prompt Pyongyang to confirm their safety, sources have reported. The inclusion of these individuals aims to urge North Korea to provide information on their whereabouts and ensure their human rights are upheld.

According to Philippines News Agency, the Human Rights Council working group on enforced disappearances has compiled a list of approximately 40 individuals. This list includes government-recognized abductees like Megumi Yokota, who was abducted at the age of 13 in Niigata Prefecture, as well as other missing persons who have not been officially acknowledged as abduction victims but are suspected to have been kidnapped by North Korea.

The list, which was sent to North Korea in February, requests that the country confirm the safety of those listed and guarantee their human rights protection. Earlier this month, the working group informed the Tokyo-based Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea that the 12 individuals not officially recognized would be added to the list. Among them are Takashi Osawa, who disappeared on Niigata’s Sado Island at the age of 27 in 1974, and Minako Nakamura, who went missing at the age of 18 in Niigata’s Nagaoka in 1998.