South Korean organizations advocating for human rights in North Korea and helping defectors have requested that U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi urge China to stop forcibly sending back North Korean refugees.

Six organizations, including the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights and the Transitional Justice Working Group, made the request in an open letter sent to Pelosi a few hours ahead of her arrival in South Korea late Wednesday.

Expressing deep concerns over the human rights of refugees being held in China, the groups said Chinese authorities have temporarily suspended the repatriation of North Korean escapees since the North went into lockdown in January 2020 due to COVID-19.

The groups estimated that at least one-thousand-170 North Korean escapees are being detained in China and living in fear of being sent back to the North.

The groups stressed that the North Korean Human Rights Act, first enacted by Congress in 2004, calls for an assessment of the circumstances facing North Korean refugees and migrants in China if forcibly returned to the North. The groups added that the legislation also calls for an assessment of whether North Koreans in China have feasible access to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.