Special to WorldTribune.com

By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com

North Korean troops deployed in a remote area hijacked Chinese fishing boats for ransom earlier this month, government officials and analysts in Seoul said.

A North Korean gunboat seized four Chinese boats with more than 30 Chinese fishermen on May 8 and demanded cash for their return.

The Chinese were fishing off the country’s northeast coast in the waters between China and North Korea when the gunmen boarded their boats and forcibly took them over.

The fishermen were taken to the North’s western island of Sodo where they were reportedly beaten, robbed and stripped of their clothing. They were confined to a tiny storage room and given two meals of thin gruel a day, according to Chinese media reports.

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  Chinese fishermen held for ransom by North Korean soldiers, East-Asia-Intel.com, on their own, Piracy against China ships shows N. Korea’s military units are desperate, two meals of thin gruel a day, western island of Sodo