[Courtesy of Unification ministry]
The workers including a male manager and 12 female staff flew into Seoul last Thursday in a secret operation done with China's connivance.
In a Red Cross statement published through state media late Tuesday, North Korea demanded South Korea apologize for abducting its citizens and repatriate them.
"We sternly denounce the group abduction of the citizens ... as a hideous crime against its dignity and social system and the life and security of its citizens," the North said.
Unless they are not sent home, South Korea will pay "a high price for the serious consequences to be entailed by its action", it said.
The defection comes as relations between Pyongyang and its mentor and traditional ally, Beijing, went sour over North Korea's defiant push for nuclear and missile programs.
Before coming to Seoul, the defectors had been under strong pressure from Pyongyang to transmit more money to their homeland, Seoul's unification ministry said, adding many North Korean restaurants are now in a financial pinch because of strengthened UN sanctions which followed Pyongyang's nuclear and long-range rocket tests.
The defection has dealt a blow to Pyongyang's recent campaign to glorify leader Kim Jong-un ahead of the ruling communist party's congress in May.
North Korean restaurants abroad have served as one of Pyongyang's important sources of hard currency.
South Korean government data showed there are about 130 North Korean restaurants operating in a dozen countries. Pyongyang operates dozens of restaurants in China alone.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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