While details remain murky, it is now known that at least 3 American citizens are being held in Pyongyang.
The Swedish Embassy has confirmed this morning that an American citizen was detained at the Pyongyang International Airport while attempting to leave the isolated country of North Korea. The act had to be confirmed by Sweden, as unlike the United States, they have an embassy located in the country’s capital of Pyongyang. As North Korea and the United States do not have direct diplomatic relations, the Swedish Embassy in North Korea is the official US protecting power and provides a limited range of consular services to US citizens. Similarly, North Korea has no embassy in the United States but is represented via their mission to the United Nations.
At this time, very limited information is known about the male US citizen. A Swedish government representative said that the man was detained while attempting to fly out of North Korea and would not comment further about the situation. According to a news outlet in South Korea, the detainee’s name is Tony Kim and he is a professor at a Christian university in Pyongyang. Other unverified sources coming from North Korea say his name is Kim Sang-duk, that he goes by “Tony,” and that he was involved in relief and aid programs inside North Korea; he reportedly had been in the country for the last month to coordinate these projects. Confirmation of the actual details surrounding this man can be expected to come from the Department of State; until then, the information is purely speculative.
There are two other known American citizens being detained in North Korea, both sentenced to over a decade of hard labor for charges such as espionage and political crimes. Tensions between the US and North Korea continue to grow over the North Korean regime’s testing of ballistic missiles and development of nuclear weapons.
