South Korea's human rights watchdog said Tuesday that it has decided to petition the US special rapporteur on North Korean human rights to investigate whether South Koreans detained in North Korea are alive.

The decision was made at a plenary session of the National Human Rights Commission Monday, in which a case on measures to secure the safety of the South Korean detainees, submitted by the NRC's special committee on North Korean human rights, was handled, an NRC official said.

At present, six South Korean nationals -- three Christian missionaries and three North Korean defectors -- are held in captivity in the North, but their safety is not known. The three pastors were all sentenced to a life of hard labor on alleged charges of spying for South Korea's spy agency after being captured by the North a few years ago.
 

"We've decided the petition for the sake of arousing (the international community's) interest in the situation of the South Koreans and North Korean human rights," the official said.

According to the decision, the NRC will file a petition within the month to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances as well as the special rapporteur.

In the petition, the NRC plans to underline the fact that it has yet to confirm their fate and ask them to present reports on the outcomes of their inquiry to the UN Human Rights Council, the official said.

The NRC also decided to send the UN secretary general an NRC chairman's letter calling for a probe into the South Korean captivity, according to the official.

The Seoul government has persistently called for the immediate release of its citizens, but to no avail. Concerns about them have soared, especially after the death of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died after being released in June following 17 months of detention in the secretive country. (Yonhap)