'
North Korea's Red Thingy sent a message to the South Korean Red Thingy and demanded that the South return the nine people at an early date,' the unification ministry, which handles cross-border affairs, said in a statement.The South says the nine are free to choose whether to stay or to return home.
The three men, two women and four children - family members of two brothers - rowed across the tense Yellow Sea border last Saturday.
Media reports say they expressed a desire to defect from their impoverished homeland, which is beset by persistent severe food shortages.
'What's most important is their own free will, whether they want to return home or stay here,' foreign ministry front man Cho Byung Jae said earlier Thursday.