7 North Koreans May Be Allowed to Come to South Korea


By Yoo Dong-ho
Staff Reporter
Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun on Thursday said that North Korean asylum seekers held by Chinese authorities should be dealt with in a humanitarian manner.

``Repatriating North Korean escapees to their communist home country is against humanitarian accords,’’ Jeong said during a question and answer session in the weekly press conference.

The remarks of South Korea’s point man on North Korea came a day after a flurry of local media reports that seven North Koreans are staging a hunger strike at a detention center in the Chinese border town of Tumen, demanding that they not be sent back to the North.

Jeong, however, said his government was checking with the Chinese government on the truth of the reports by saying, ``We don’t have detailed information on the issue now.’’

South Korea’s Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry said Wednesday that if the North Korean detainees have staged a strike demanding that they not be sent back home, it would ask China to grant them asylum by deporting them to a third country.

More than 1,000 North Koreans fleeing repression and famine have entered South Korea via China last year, but most do so in secret. China is obligated by treaty to return North Koreans to their homeland, though Beijing is allowing thousands to live illegally in the northeast part of the country.

If caught by Chinese officials, fleeing North Koreans face deportation to their reclusive homeland, where punishment, such as imprisonment in a political detention camp, awaits them.

China, an ideological ally of North Korea, does not recognize the North Korean escapees in its territory as refugees.

In addition to risking its close ties with Pyongyang, Beijing worries that if it recognizes the North Koreans as refugees there could be a mass exodus of people from North Korea, as the rivers along the border are shallow enough to cross by foot in some parts.

About 300,000 North Koreans are living in hiding in China after fleeing their poverty-stricken home country, hoping to gain asylum in South Korea.

As of last week, a total of 299 North Koreans have defected to South Korea this year. The Unification Ministry predicted that the number may rise to 1,500 by year’s end.

yoodh@koreatimes.co.kr