Hundreds of South Korean soldiers who were taken prisoners during the Korean War are reportedly still alive in the North.

The Defense Ministry said in a report Friday that a total of four hundred-96 South Korean POW's are still being held in North Korea after being captured by communist forces during the Korean War more than 50 years ago.

The ministry earlier tallied the total number of South Korean POWs in the North at about 42-thousand. The number of POWs whose identities and fates have been identified stood at about one-thousand-100.

The report said 32 South Korean POWs have fled to the South over the past five years.

It is the first time that the South Korean government has officially disclosed the number of POWs in the North that have been identified.

But the ministry did not make public the list of POWs still alive in the North to protect the privacy of families of the soldiers.