A South Korean civic group representing families of North Korean abduction victims has launched balloons carrying thousands of leaflets toward the DPRK, after border residents and officials blocked several previous attempts due to concerns about aggravating inter-Korean tensions.

The Abductee’s Family Union released three leaflet balloons from a border area in Gangwon Province on Thursday night, according the group’s head Choi Sung-yong, appealing directly to Pyongyang to confirm the fate and facilitate the return of loved ones in decades-old cases of enforced disappearances attributed to the DPRK.