North Korea’s Red Cross Society has demanded that South Korea repatriate all 31 North Koreans who crossed the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea last month in a wooden fishing boat.

In a statement carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency Thursday, the Red Cross organization said that the South should immediately and unconditionally have the North Koreans returned to their homeland, claiming that the North Koreans are being held in the South against their will.

The statement also claimed that the South pressed the North Koreans to defect to the South through deception and threats. The North said that such a move is a serious provocation.

The North initially requested that the North Koreans be returned on February eighth, or three days after the group entered South Korean waters. However, Seoul has been attempting for nearly a month to figure out how the North Koreans came to cross the maritime border and whether they wish to remain in the South.

The government was planning to repatriate 27 North Koreans from the group via the truce village of Panmunjeom on Friday, but the government may likely delay repatriation plans following the North’s recent request for the entire group to be returned.