On August 21, 15 North Korean defectors attempting to flee to South Korea were reportedly arrested by Chinese authorities near the China-Southeast Asia border, according to sources.
The families of those arrested are urgently appealing to the international community and the South Korean government to prevent their forced repatriation to North Korea, Radio Free Asia reported on August 26.
According to Jang Se-yul, the head of the South Korean-based human rights organization Gyereol Unification Solidarity, the group of defectors was detained by Chinese authorities in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
Jang recounted, “Two groups safely reached Kunming and merged. However, while sending a video from the riverbank, they were ambushed by the authorities, and communication was abruptly cut off. Another broker later confirmed that they were all arrested at the riverbank.”
Jang further detailed that one of the detained defectors is the sibling of a North Korean defector currently residing in Seoul. The group of 15, who had left Yanji in China’s Jilin Province ten days earlier, had their last known whereabouts in Kunming. The final communication received was a video sent by their Chinese guides showing several women, presumed to be defectors, moving towards a river in the dark.
Radio Free Asia reported that it was unable to independently verify whether the river depicted in the video is the Mekong River, which borders China and Laos.
Kunming is a critical transit point within China for North Korean defectors attempting to reach South Korea via Southeast Asia. According to Jang, the arrested group consisted of 13 North Korean women and two children, who had gathered from China’s Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces. For safety reasons, they had divided into two groups before converging in Kunming.
On the evening of August 21, they were preparing to board a speedboat to continue their journey to a third country in Southeast Asia. A local Chinese broker, who was guiding the defectors, informed their families in South Korea that they had safely reached the riverbank. However, the group was soon ambushed by Chinese authorities and arrested.
It is suspected that the Chinese Public Security Bureau had prior knowledge of the exact time and location of the group’s movements, leading to speculation that one of the 15 defectors might have been an informant working with the authorities. This method of infiltration has been used in the past by Chinese authorities to arrest brokers and defectors by planting “fake defectors” within escape groups.
Currently, the detained defectors are believed to have been transferred to Jilin Province. One of the detained women’s sisters, who resides in South Korea, has urgently called on the international community and the South Korean government to intervene and prevent their forced repatriation to North Korea.
The South Korean Ministry of Unification has also been informed of the situation, according to the report.
BY YOUNGNAM KIM [kim.youngnam@koreadaily.com]
