Reports: American tourist detained in North Korea

[NewsCaster]

By NBC News staff and wire reportsSEOUL -- An American tourist who visited North Korea last month for what was to have been a five-day trip has been detained by police there, associates of his family and activists in Seoul said.

Kenneth Bae, 44, was in a group of five tourists who visited the northeast city of Rajin, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, citing a report by the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper. Bae, who is Korean-American, entered North Korea on Nov. 3.

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"What we know is that he is a person who wants to help poor children, kotjebis (homeless children), and he took pictures of them to support them later," said Do Hee-youn, a North Korean human rights activist and head of the Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.

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