Seven former North Korean waitresses told foreign media that their 12 colleagues who defected to South Korea about two weeks ago were tricked by their manager and “abducted” by the South Korean government.

Pyongyang, a few days before the interview was held, published articles claiming the mass-defection case was South Korea’s “terror attack” on North Koreans by abducting and taking them to Seoul against their will.

“In mid-March our restaurant manager gathered us together and told us that our restaurant would be moved to somewhere in Southeast Asia,” former head waitress Choe Hye Yong told  CNN‘s Will Ripley.