South Korea to discuss safety of emigrants

South Korea’s government held a meeting on Wednesday to talk about ways it can ensure its citizens living in other countries are kept safe amid a period of rising terrorism and crime.

Officials from the country’s Foreign Ministry and other prominent governmental groups converged amid mounting concerns that not enough was being done to protect Koreans living in other countries.

Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul described putting preemptive measures in place to ensure nationals living abroad as “urgent”, noting that they were exposed to a number of risks, including terrorist acts, natural disasters and crime.

According to ministry figures, there are around 2.6 million Korean citizens living abroad permanently, while a further 15 million travel overseas each year. In recent times, more Koreans have suffered at the hands of criminal activities in foreign countries, with 10 being murdered in the Philippines last year and 13 killed the previous year. Meanwhile, four Koreans convicted of drug dealing in China were executed in 2014.

There are also mounting fears that South Koreans could be a target for terrorist attacks following the killing of two Japanese journalists by the Islamic State in Syria. At present, travel bans are placed on six countries – Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.