A 67-year old South Korean fisherman, allegedly kidnapped by North Korea 31 years ago, has escaped from the North and is staying in China.

An association of abductee families said that, Choe Uk-il and 32 other fishermen were abducted from the East Sea while aboard the fishing boat Cheonwang-ho in August 1975.

At the end of last year, Choe was reunited with his wife Yang Jeong-ja in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji.

After returning to South Korea alone, Yang demanded that the government assure her husband’s safe return.

Choe told his wife that he married a North Korean woman in 1979, with whom he had a son and a daughter, and that he worked on a farm in North Hamgyeong Province. He also said that fellow fisherman Park Sang-won lived in the neighborhood but died in 1998.

Another fisherman Ko Myeong-seop is the only other from the same boat who has returned to the South.