Hitomi Soga, a victim of abduction who came back to Japan with her husband Robert Jenkins, testified in 2005 that there were 3 American ex-servicemen in North Korea who, like Robert Jenkins, had deserted the army. Their wives had all been abducted: Anocha, (Thai), Shiham (Lebanese) and Doina (Romanian).
In October 2005, Soga and Jenkins’ testimonies were largely aired in the Thai media which prompted Anocha’s family to come forward. In November of the same year, the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea (AFVKN) and the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (NARKN) came to question the victim’s family. They learned the following facts:
2/ Lebanese abductions
Even before Hitomi Soga testified, the case of Shiham Shratiteh's abduction was publicly known. In July 1978 Shiham, along with three other young Lebanese women, had been promised jobs in a Japanese company, but found themselves taken to North Korea. In 1979, two of them managed to escape while they were in Belgrade. The Lebanese government demanded that North Korea liberate the other two woman, which it did in 1979 . Shiham, however, pregnant to an American deserter who had fled to North Korea and whom she had married, decided to return to North Korea and still lives there.