North Korea says it has detained an American who illegally entered the country last week

North Korea says it detains American man

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea says it has detained an American man who illegally entered the country last week.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch Tuesday that the American was detained and under investigation after illegally entering through the North Korea-China border last Thursday.

It didn’t identify the American man.

However, the report comes as South Korean activists say 28-year-old American missionary Robert Park slipped across the frozen Tumen River into North Korea from China last week in an attempt to call attention to the reclusive country’s human rights conditions.

The activists had said Park entered North Korea on Friday.