South Korean Army soldiers work in font of a military guard post at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, a city near the border with North Korea, in this July 21, 2023, file photo. AP-Yonhap

A former South Korean prisoner of war, who was held in North Korea for 50 years before making his escape, died on Wednesday, leaving only nine such surviving escapees in the South.

The body of the man, surnamed Kim, whose identity has not been revealed at the request of his family, will be buried at the Seoul National Cemetery on Friday.

According to the Ministry of National Defense, Thursday, Vice Minister Kim Seon-ho visited the deceased man's family that day to offer his condolences. President Yoon Suk Yeol and Minister Shin won-sik also offered the family their commiserations and flowers.

Kim was captured by North Korean forces during the first year of the Korean War (1950-53). He reportedly was subjected to decades of forced labor before his escape in 2003.

More than 80,000 South Korean soldiers were estimated to have been held captive in North Korea when the war ended with a cease-fire. The North sent only 8,343 of them back to the South between April 1953 and January 1954, according to data from the Unification Ministry. Other war prisoners have never been allowed to return. Kim was one of just 80 people who have escaped and made it home to South Korea.

Yet the government in Seoul does not have sufficient information about all of the prisoners. To gather more facts about them and honor their sacrifices, a group of lawmakers proposed a bill in 2021 to prompt a government fact-finding mission. But it has been pending since then at the National Assembly. Human rights activists say a lack of political will has been the main reason.

Speaking to The Korea Times, Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst at Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based NGO, suggested the idea of establishing a national holiday in honor of them in an effort to raise awareness and support.

"The government recently announced its plan to designate July 14 as a national day in honor of North Korean refugees. It should establish a national day for prisoners of war," he said, adding that the government in the U.S. designated its National POW/MIA Recognition Day after the Vietnam War.