1. Doina Bumbea was a Romanian painter who was abducted to North Korea in 1978.
12 Facts About Doina Bumbea
1. 2.
Doina Bumbea accepted and was taken there, but she was not allowed to leave the country.
3.
Doina Bumbea was born on 25 January 1950 in Bucharest, Romania.
4.
Doina Bumbea had two brothers, one of them being Gabriel Bumbea.
5.
Doina Bumbea's father died in 1989, but as of 2014, her mother was still alive.
6.
In 1970, Doina Bumbea left Romania and went to Rome, where she married an Italian citizen.
7.
Doina Bumbea accepted this and was sent to North Korea, from where she would not be allowed to leave.
8.
Therefore, Doina Bumbea was forcibly married in the early 1980s to the American defector James Joseph Dresnok by the North Korean authorities.
9.
Doina Bumbea had two children with Dresnok, Theodore Ricardo Dresnok, born in December 1981; and James Gabriel Dresnok, born in February 1983.
10.
Doina Bumbea died from lung cancer in January 1997 in Pyongyang, isolated from the outer world.
11.
Doina Bumbea's husband died in 2016, while her two children would become soldiers in the North Korean army.
12.
Doina Bumbea attempted to meet with or contact his nephews, although unsuccessfully.