Ri So Yong, a 23-year-old student of Pyongyang Central Cooking School, told KCNA that the seizure is not an incident but a planned kidnapping.

She said the kidnapping, detention and submission work are a grave encroachment upon the rights of the DPRK and its citizens and another wicked provocation against the DPRK.

The victims, instead of being consoled in their misfortune, even suffered from sexual harassment and abuses, she said. The fact proves once again that the south Korean regime is a group of criminals seeking only confrontation with the DPRK.

Pae Yong Min, a 34-year-old man living in Sosong District, Pyongyang, said that the seizure of the boat was aimed to further aggravate the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north, scuttle north-south dialogue and obstruct the improvement of relations with the north.

The criminal act will never escape from public condemnation, he stressed.