Doina Bumbea: A Romanian Abducted to North Korea

The Romanian newspaper Evenimentul Zilei ('The Event of the Day') has managed to confirm the identity of a Romanian woman abducted to North Korea during the 1970s.

Doinea Bumbea was a Romanian painter who disappeared in the 70s after telling family an Italian agent will arrange an exhibition for her in Japan....

The story was reconstructed by EVZ reporters after they found the woman’s family. The reporters also found out that she died ten years ago.

Radio Free Asia has more.

WASHINGTON—A Romanian newspaper says it has identified a Romanian woman, kidnapped in 1978, who married the U.S. Army deserter James Dresnok—reportedly the last U.S. defector still living in North Korea.

In its March 20 issue, the Bucharest-based Evenimentul Zilei reports that the late Doina Bumbea, a Romanian sculptor and painter born in 1950, was abducted in 1978 from Italy to North Korea.

There, she married an American soldier who had deserted his unit by fleeing across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea

In his Japanese-language memoir To Tell the Truth, another American defector, Charles Jenkins, describes a woman named Doina, a Romanian abductee, who died of cancer in January 1997....

Romanian officials have verbally sought clarification from Pyongyang regarding the alleged Romanian abductee, but North Korean officials haven’t replied.

Dresnok, a U.S. Army private at the time, crossed over to North Korea in 1962. He reportedly still lives in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. The U.S. military has said that Dresnok, from Norfolk, Virginia, left the army in August 1962 at age 21.

via The Marmot