Nine Vietnamese who went unaccounted for in South Korea after accompanying a high-level legislative delegation to attend a business forum last year are not members of the lawmaking National Assembly’s diplomatic mission, Vietnam’s legislature said on Wednesday.

National Assembly chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan led a high-level delegation of the Vietnamese parliament on an official visit to South Korea between December 4 and 7, 2018 at the invitation of her South Korean counterpart Moon Hee Sang, the legislative body’s general secretary and spokesperson Nguyen Hanh Phuc told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

On the last day of their trip, the delegation attended a Vietnam-Korea investment and trade forum co-hosted by the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, the South Korean Embassy in Vietnam, and the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Phuc said.

On Monday, Korean news channel MBC reported that nine people in the Vietnamese delegation have since stayed in South Korea as “illegal residents."

Two of them have been found and deported to Vietnam while seven remained unaccounted for as of Monday, ten months after their disappearance, MBC said.

“This is an unfortunate incident,” Phuc told Tuoi Tre on Wednesday.

“Those who illegally stayed behind [in South Korea] are not members of the National Assembly’s diplomatic mission and were not holders of diplomatic visas,” the spokesperson said.

Phuc added that the nine Vietnamese nationals who went missing in South Korea were participants in the business forum and were allowed to travel on the same flight as the parliamentary delegation due to there being vacant seats on the plane.

“These people were not part of the official visiting delegation,” Phuc stressed.

“National Assembly leaders are aware of the situation and have requested that the [Vietnamese] Ministry of Public Security coordinate with relevant sides to investigate and strictly handle the case in line with the law."

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