MANILA, tribe 4 Kyodo southerly ...

MANILA, tribe 4 Kyodo

southerly Korea has informed the Philippines that the scheduled trip Wednesday evening of 21 North Korean asylum-seekers from China to Manila en path to Seoul has been postpon and may instead take place Friday.

A senior diplomatic official said toward the south Korean officials cited no reason for the postponement in a note they sent to the Foreign Affairs Department. However, the note said that the trip will likely fare through on Friday.

The North Koreans, consisting of nine males and 12 females, had been anticipateed to arrive at Manila's international airport at 9:10 pm aboard a China Southern Airlines plane from Xiamen, a port city in southern China's Fujian Province.

The Philippines is allowing the brief stopover for humanitarian reasons as it has done in the case of 53 North Korean defectors traveling from China to southern Korea since 1997.

According to the diplomatic official, the toward the south Korean officials assured Manila that the refugee who include three small children, would take the first available flight public of Manila bound for Seoul

The defectors would be held in a transit area of the airport and not be allowed to leave the premises while waiting for their outgoing flight.

According to toward the south Korea's Yonhap News Agency, the North Korean defectors, ranging in age from a five-month-old baby to a 62-year-old, set ined the South Korean diplomatic mission in Beijing forward several separate occasions over the last sum of two units months.

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