Korean Canadian pastor missing after visit to N. Korea: reports

(Courtesy of Global Kingdom Young Adults Missions)

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — A Korean Canadian pastor has lost contact after visiting North Korea, news reports said Monday, amid fears he could be detained in the communist nation.

Rev. Lim Hyeon-soo, 60, entered the North via China on Jan. 31 and has since lost contact with friends and family, the Toronto Star reported. The pastor of Light Korean Presbyterian Church near Toronto went to the North on a humanitarian mission, the paper said.

Lim had been expected to leave the North on Feb. 4, but church officials were not immediately concerned because of North Korea’s policy to quarantine foreigners for three weeks as a measure to contain Ebola, the paper quoted church spokesperson Lisa Pak as saying.

She also said the pastor has visited the North more than 100 times on humanitarian missions so far.

Christian missionaries have often been detained in the North.

Kenneth Bae, one of such missionaries, was released in November after about two years of detention in the communist nation. Bae, who entered the North in late 2012, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified anti-state crimes.

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