Moscow says NKorea holding ship with 17 crew

North Korea has held a Russian fishing ship with a crew of 15 Russians and two South Koreans since its detention last week, the Russian embassy in Pyongyang said yesterday. North Korean border guards detained the ship belonging to the Russian North-Eastern Fishing Company on July 17.

“According to the North Korean foreign ministry, the ship was detained for ‘violating rules of entry and stay’” in North Korea, the embassy said on its Facebook page. Representatives of the Russian embassy met with the Russian captain and a deputy who were staying at a hotel in the North Korean city of Wonsan, together with the two South Korean sailors, it said. The rest of the crew is still on the ship.

“All the crew members are in good health,” it said, adding that “the clarification of what happened” was underway. The deputy director of the North-Eastern Fishing Company, Sergei Sedler, said the vessel was fishing for crab and travelled from South Korea to the Sea of Japan when it was detained some 55 nautical miles from the North Korean border.

“Twice a day they are questioning and searching them in a very harsh manner,” he told Kommersant daily, referring to the crew on board. Russian coast guards frequently detain North Korean fishermen, many of whom use rudimentary wooden boats, in the Far East, with some sentenced to prison.