South Korea plans to increase its manpower at its overseas diplomatic missions and strengthen cooperation with relevant countries to better protect North Korean defectors believed to be hiding in those nations, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The plan came after a group of 20 North Korean refugees, who had been under protection by the South Korean Embassy in Laos, were said to have recently made it to Seoul.

Last month nine young defectors were repatriated by Laos and China to their totalitarian homeland.

In a report to the National Assembly, the ministry said it will “seek extensive cooperation with the international community and set up a system of cooperation with relevant countries tailored to their situations.”

“The issue of North Korean asylum seekers should be addressed in a broad context of the universal value of human rights and securing the lives and safety of North Korean asylum seekers is the most crucial of all,” a senior ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

Laos and some other Southeast Asian nations serve as key transit points for North Korean defectors who flee their homeland through China with the aim of eventually entering South Korea.

More than 25,000 North Korean defectors have arrived in South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. (Yonhap News)