KAWASAKI (Kyodo) -- The mother of Megumi Yokota, a symbolic victim of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals decades ago, feels her strength faltering but vowed not to give up on a reunion with her daughter as she turned 89 on Tuesday.

"My life has been terrible and I really want it to end. But I will persevere until the day (Megumi) returns home," Sakie Yokota said in a recent interview near Tokyo, 47 years after her daughter was taken by North Korean agents at the age of 13 from Niigata on the Sea of Japan coast.

Yokota, whose husband Shigeru died at 87 in 2020, said she has been tormented by the "contradictory" situation of not being able to get Megumi back, although she believes her daughter is in North Korea.

"It's not just an issue of parents" wanting to meet their child, Yokota said, urging the "Japanese government to take action" and demonstrate to North Korea that it is a country that will not stand by and tolerate such abductions.

Noting her aging and declining health, she said "Human beings cannot live forever...It has been taking too long" to resolve the abduction issue.

With U.S. President Donald Trump returning to office last month, Yokota has expressed hope he can arrange another summit with North Korea and press the abductions issue, as he did in his first term.

But Yokota, who reads newspapers every morning, said she is aware of the growing complexities of engaging with North Korea, which aggressively pursues nuclear and missile development programs in the face of international condemnation.

Of the 17 people Japan lists as having been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, five returned to Japan in 2002. Yokota and Akihiro Arimoto, 96, whose daughter Keiko was taken in 1983, are the only surviving parents of the remaining 12.

Japan suspects North Korea's involvement in many more disappearances.