The members of the Association of Kidnapped Japanese Families by North Korea met in the northern province of Chiang Mai with Sukam Panjoy, 59, an older brother of Anocha Panjoy, allegedly abducted from the then-Portuguese colony of Macau where she was working in 1978 and forced to live in North Korea.

North Korea denies abducting Anocha or that she is living in the country.

“They just came and asked for information about my family, taking copies of old pictures of Anocha and promising to help bring my sister back home if she still alive,” Sukam said of his visitors from Japan.

He said it was good that foreigners took an interest in the case, but that he was not optimistic that they would be able to do much except publicize her story. Teruaki Masumoto, head of the Japanese group, said before leaving Japan that he hoped that by working with the Thai woman’s family, the plight of kidnapping victims would gain greater attention.

“We think we need to cooperate with families of the victims and appeal to the world that kidnapping victims are not just Japanese and South Koreans,” he said. The group has claimed that North Korea had foreign abductees from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Romania and Lebanon.

U.S. Army deserter Robert Jenkins, who abandoned his unit and fled to North Korea in 1965 before emerging in 2004, recently said that Anocha has been living in North Korea since she was kidnapped.

North Korea in 2002 acknowledged kidnapping about a dozen Japanese citizens to help train spies. One of the kidnapped women, Hitomi Soga, became Jenkins’ wife. But Pyongyang has not acknowledged kidnapping the nationals of other countries.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday that the members of the Japanese group were carrying a message from Soga offering help in rescuing Anocha.