SEOUL, South Korea >> The video footage and photos captured their final moments in South Korea: Two North Korean fishermen taken against their will to the border. One of them was so resistant to being deported to North Korea that South Korean officials had to drag him. The other appeared resigned to his fate.

The footage and 10 photos of the men, newly released by the South Korean government, were taken in 2019. At the time, the South Korean government called the men “murderers” who had killed 16 fellow North Korean fishermen. The men, though acknowledging the killings, said they wanted to defect.

The case triggered outrage back then because it was the first time South Korea rejected a North Korean request to defect and forced someone back across the border unwillingly. In releasing new material, the conservative government of President Yoon Suk-yeol has revived the issue, accusing his predecessor’s government of violating human rights.