[imText1]Choi Woo Young, president of Families of Abducted and Detained in North Korea, submitted a letter written to Munhwa Ilbo directed to her father Choi Jong Seok, who was abducted to North Korea, celebrating her father’s sixtieth birthday and urging the return of him. She said she is surprised to receive such unexpected spotlight.

While welcoming the kind of attention, Choi expressed her feelings, “I hope the interest transfers to North Korea and if father comes back, there is nothing more I would ask for.”

October 26th is the birthday is the sixtieth birthday of Choi Jong Suk and the 18th birthday of which Choi could not celebrate birthday for her father. A teenage girl of high school freshman has now become a middle aged woman and her father who seemed to be an ever reliable man in his forties might be now an old man who may need frequent medical check up.

Choi says for the last eighteen years she was never able to set a birthday table and that distresses her most and she wanted to express her feelings for her father’s sixtieth birthday in any ways possible.

Choi’s father, Choi Jong Seok, was the head of the boat “Dongjin #27” and was abducted in January 15, 1987 around Baekryong Island area with ten other men on the boat. Although verification of life was conducted for the other men, it was not done for Choi for due to the suspicion of espionage about him.

Choi says recently she heard that her father’s health state aggravated from a government official, which made her heart ever more distressed.

“If he was near me I would have taken him to the doctors for treatments, but because he is not, all I can do is to urge Commander Kim Jong Il send father back. I wrote a letter and posted it on a newspaper in a hope that Kim Jong Il will have a chance to read my letter.”

“My fathers liked write steamed rice and raw fish and soju (a kind of strong alcoholic beverage). I would like to bring my father back immediately and set a birthday table, but if that is not possible, I hope somebody remembers his birthday there and set him a birthday table.” Choi’s letter traced the deepest longing one can feel for lost family.