The ROK foreign ministry is mobilizing all diplomatic resources to prevent seven North Korean defectors currently being held in China from being involuntarily repatriated, foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha told a press conference Friday.

Asked by a journalist during a briefing at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club if she had a message for China regarding the case, Kang responded that the situation was “a very very sensitive one” that “requires very delicate discussions with the host country.”