The South Korean Embassy in Beijing is trying to confirm reports that North Koreans held in a detention camp in China are on a hunger strike demanding not to be repatriated to their homeland.

An embassy official said Wednesday that the embassy had asked the Chinese Foreign Ministry to check up on the report.

The Seoul-based Munhwa Ilbo newspaper quoted South Korean human rights activists in China as saying that some one-hundred North Korean asylum-seekers are fasting at a detention camp in the border city of Tumen.

The daily said the group had been on a hunger strike since Monday following a hunger strike by seven escapees who were captured by Chinese authorities while attempting to cross China's border into Vietnam last month.

The Commission to Help North Korean Refugees, a Seoul-based activist group, urged Beijing to release the North Koreans and called on the U-N High Commissioner for Refugees to take all necessary steps to investigate the case.

But a Chinese official denied the reports.