( CNN ) -- South Korean fisherman Jeon Wook-pyo set out on a boat in the Yellow Sea more than 40 years ago -- and did n't get home till Friday . Jeon 's return to his family in Seoul from North Korea raises more questions than answers , and underscores the larger issue of alleged abductions by North Korea . Jeon , now 68 , escaped last month from North Korea to a country which has not been identified publicly , where he wrote a letter to South Korean President Park Geun-hye , appealing for help to return to Seoul . Is Dennis Rodman smart on North Korea ? `` I took a chance to escape the North because I had a growing wish to spend the rest of my life with my relatives and brothers at home , '' he wrote Park , according to South Korea 's Yonhap News Agency . Jeon reunited with his family in the South Korean capital on Friday after undergoing questioning by South Korean officials , a Unification Ministry official told CNN . North Korea : Reality vs. the world according to Dennis Rodman . Jeon and two dozen other fishermen were abducted from two boats off South Korea 's western coast on December 28 , 1972 ; none of the others has returned , Yonhap said . South Korea was not aware that Jeon had been abducted by North Korea until 2005 , when a photograph from 1974 surfaced showing him at an indoctrination camp in North Korea with several other abducted South Korean fishermen , according to South Korea 's Chosun Ilbo newspaper . Abductions have long been a source of conflict between the Koreas , who have maintained tense relations since their 1950-53 conflict . The Korean war ended in an armistice , not a peace treaty , meaning the two sides are still technically at war . Obama marks 'forgotten war ' in Korea . South Korea has accused North Korea of abducting its citizens for intelligence-gathering or propaganda purposes . Pyongyang has denied holding any South Koreans against their will . Just how many South Koreans may have been abducted is unclear , said Ron Redmond , a spokesman for the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea . `` It 's a difficult thing to assess , because lots of times , these cases do n't turn up for a year , '' he said from Geneva . `` Nobody knows what happens ; they disappear . '' The South Korean government said that , since the armistice , about 3,500 of its citizens have been abducted by North Korea , most of them at sea during the 1960s and 1970s , Redmond said . Though most have been freed , the government says that the whereabouts of about 500 are unknown , he said . Other countries , including Japan , have also accused North Korea of abductions . Tokyo has cited 17 cases of Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang , according to Giuseppe Calandruccio , also with the U.N. commission . `` There are many other cases where there are suspicions , but nobody can prove it , '' he said . Last month , more than 40 witnesses -- some of them recently arrived from North Korea -- testified before representatives from the U.N. inquiry commission in Seoul , and they detailed horrific abuse at the hands of their captors . A report from the commission is due in March . One of those who testified was Jeong Kwang Il , a North Korean defector once worked for a North Korean trading company that he said dealt with China and South Korea . That ended abruptly in 1999 , when he was arrested by government security agents , he said . `` These people were beating me with clubs , and they said I should confess that I am a spy . But I told them . ' I 'm not a spy . ' But they kept beating me -- for two weeks . '' After undergoing `` pigeon torture , '' in which he was hung upside down with his hands cuffed behind his back , he confessed to what he told the commission he had never done . `` I could not endure this any more so I confessed that I was given a spy 's job from South Korea , '' he said . `` I had given up . '' Jeong said he was then taken to a political camp , where he spent three years before he was released to discover that his home was no longer where it had been , and he could not find his family . `` I felt betrayed , '' he said . `` I decided that I was done in North Korea . '' After a year-long escape route that took him through China , Vietnam , Cambodia and Thailand , Jeong arrived in South Korea in 2004 , where he has started a new life , but not forgotten the old one . `` Even if they give me a lot of money , I will not go back to that country , '' he vowed . The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea was established in March by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate `` systematic , widespread and grave violations of human rights in North Korea . '' CNN 's Paula Hancocks contributed to this report .
After more than 40 years , Jeon Wook-pyo is back with his family . Now 68 , Jeon was abducted in 1972 . He was among 25 fishermen aboard two boats seized by North Korea . None of the others has returned .