After years of angry denials, North Korea admitted yesterday that its intelligence services had kidnapped 11 Japanese since the 1970s.

Among those who disappeared from Japan's lonely northern coast was Megumi Yokota, 13, a schoolgirl on her way home from badminton practice. Other Japanese disappeared after studying in Europe, including Keiko Arimoto, who went travelling in Europe after an English course in London. She sent her parents a postcard from Copenhagen in October 1983, and was not heard of again.

Over the years, as the families grieved, there were suspicions that the sinister regime in North Korea was to blame. The Japanese authorities compiled a list of 11 people who they believed had been spirited to Pyongyang. In Keiko's case this was confirmed when her parents received a smuggled photograph of a baby girl she had had in North Korea by her husband, another abducted Japanese.

Then, this year, the former wife of a Japanese Red Army terrorist testified in court that she had helped to abduct Keiko in Copenhagen. "Keiko must be so sorry she ignored my advice to come straight home from England," her mother, Kayoko Arimoto, said then. "I just hope I have the chance to see her, and hold in my arms once before I die."

But yesterday Kayoko learnt her daughter was dead. During a summit in Pyongyang with Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's Prime Minister, Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, admitted that in the 1970s and 1980s his country had kidnapped the 11 people on Japan's list. Only four are still alive, with a fifth described as missing. Among the dead are Megumi Yokota, who also had a daughter in North Korea, according to a defector.

Mr Kim apologised for the abductions, said he had punished those involved and promised to prevent a repetition. Mr Koizumi said: "When I think of the families' feelings, there is nothing I can say. My heart is filled with pain."

Why did North Korea steal away a schoolgirl, several students and others, including a 43-year-old cook and a 52-year-old security guard? Mr Kim did not explain, but according to defectors, they were used to teach Japanese to the regime's agents and educate them on everyday life in Japan, so they could operate there without being detected.

Nor was there any explanation of why or how the Japanese died. The four survivors are two couples: Kaoru Hasuike, a student, who disappeared with his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, from a library near Japan's north coast in July 1978; and Yasushi Chimura, 23, a carpenter, who in the same month and the same area took his fiancée, Fukie Hamamoto, to dinner at a restaurant. They vanished.

According to Japanese intelligence sources, up to 40 people may have been abducted in the past quarter century. Most have never been heard of again, and for the families who learnt the fate of their loved ones yesterday, there was little but pain. "When I heard the news, I was so saddened, I could not even cry," said Kayoko Arimoto. Her daughter's husband was also confirmed dead by the North Koreans. Megumi's father, Shigeru Yokota, said: "I am saddened. I cannot believe her death."

North Korea said it would help the Japanese who were alive to go home Mr Kim's admission is aimed at securing a resumption of diplomatic relations. That in turn could ease relations with the US, which brackets North Korea with Iraq and Iran as members of an "axis of evil".

But Mr Koizumi, who agreed to provide aid possibly totalling £6.5bn, and to resume talks with Pyongyang, could face a domestic backlash. Shigeru Ishiba, an MP who has supported the families, said of the kidnappings: "It is an unforgiveable act of barbarism. This is nothing but state terrorism."