A North Korean doctor and his wife have been freed after a 16-month detention by ISIS in Libya, The Libya Observer, a local news service, reported on Thursday.

The two were identified as 58-year-old Ri Yong, a doctor, and his 56-year-old wife So Young Ju.

North Korean doctor and his wife were found in Sirte’s District No. 3 where they had been detained by Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Libya), Libyan media outlet Akhbar Libya reported in Arabic on Thursday.

The Observatory, another local outlet, reported in an Arabic dispatch the same day that pro-Government forces had found five hostages, including three foreigners, in a small building located in Sirte’s District No.3, where fierce battles have taken place between U.S.-backed Libyan government forces and ISIS.

But the Libya Observer said there were two more Indian hostages, which is inconsistent with the Observatory’s report, which stated that among the five hostages, there were three foreigners.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when contacted by NK News for comment, was not immediately aware of the development, but later said it believed that there was a high likelihood that reports were trustworthy.

“Since there is no such official media in Libya now, we aren’t 100 percent sure about the issue, but we believe that the reliability of the report is high,” an official at South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday, pointing out there was no South Korean embassy and therefore no official diplomatic channel in Libya through which to glean information about goings on in the war-torn country.

The official also pointed out that the North Korean detainees have either been rescued by pro-Government coalition forces or abandoned by ISIS during a retreat.

Ri in the video, which was uploaded by the Libya Observer, explained his whereabouts in Arabic, but NK News was able to confirm that Ri’s Arabic speaking skills were not fluent, and even Arabic native speakers had difficulty understanding what was being said in the video.

“I was detained for a year and four months in Sirte…,” Ri says in the video. “Yes, it was Ahmed Ibrahim… The doors were locked… there was no sun, and no light,” Ri answered when asked what had happened.

The North Korean doctor and his wife were kidnapped by ISIS when they were on their way to Tripoli after finishing their work in Jalu hospital in May of last year.

Main picture: E. Lafforgue