The government is trying to verify claims that a group of 15 North Korean escapees were arrested in China in the process of heading to South Korea. 

Jang Se-yul, the head of the North Korean People's Liberation Front, which is a Seoul-based North Korean defectors' group, told KBS on Tuesday that the escapees were arrested by Chinese authorities in Kunming in China’s southern Yunnan Province last Wednesday. 

According to Jang, the group, consisting of 13 women and two teenagers, had left Jilin Province in two teams around August 10. 

As a gateway to Southeast Asia and South Asia, Kunming is a major spot through which North Korean escapees in China pass through to get to South Korea. 

A unification ministry official told reporters that the government is trying verify the claims, adding that under no circumstances should North Korean escapees who reside abroad be forcibly sent back to the North against their will.