An American student serving 15 years of hard labor in North Korea was evacuated from the rogue country Tuesday after being in a coma for more than a year amid reports he had been brutally beaten.

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told The Washington Post. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

His 23-year-old son, a University of Virginia student, has been in a coma since being convicted in Pyongyang in March 2016 for stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel.

“We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime,” Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a harrowing statement to the AP.

A senior US official said there had been intelligence reports in recent weeks that Warmbier was repeatedly beaten in custody, The New York Times reported. The official, who spoke anonymously, also told the paper there had been concerns that Warmbier had died as a result of the beatings.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Warmbier’s release in a statement.

“At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea,” he said. “Mr. Warmbier is en route to the US, where he will be reunited with his family.”

Warmbier’s parents said they were informed their son became sick with botulism shortly after his trial and was given a sleeping pill. He never woke up, the Warmbiers told The Washington Post.

Former diplomat Bill Richardson, who played a role in past negotiations with North Korea, said Warmbier needs medical care urgently, Reuters reported.

“In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” said Richardson, whose Center for Global Engagement had directly sought Warmbier’s release with Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Tillerson, at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, declined to comment on Warmbier’s condition.

A person who answered the phone at the Warmbier family’s Ohio home said: “No comment, thank you” and hung up.

Warmbier was evacuated through a US military base in Sapporo, Japan, and was expected to arrive home in Cincinnati late Tuesday.

The secretive regime said Warmbier had been arrested in January 2016 for a crime against the state with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation.”

He was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years for subversion after he tearfully confessed he tried to swipe the banner from a restricted area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel as a trophy for a friend in the US.

Three other US citizens continue to be held in the country.

Additional reporting by Gabby Morrongiello, Wire Services