More and more North Koreans mysteriously vanish
Over 100 North Koreans have suddenly disappeared after being apprehended by the country’s secret police while trying to escape or contact family members in South Korea.
The Seoul-based NGO Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) has released a report documenting patterns of forced disappearances, based on interviews with 62 North Korean defectors as part of its study.
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, tens of thousands of North Koreans have attempted to reach South Korea, but many have been repatriated or confined in forced labor camps.
The group identified 113 individuals in 66 cases of disappearance, with 80% of them detained in North Korea and the others arrested either in China or Russia.
Around 40% of these people vanished while attempting to flee, while 26% reportedly “sacrificed” themselves by admitting to a crime in place of a family member.
Kang Jeong-hyun, the project director, explained that this report aims to show that forced disappearances by Kim Jong Un’s regime are transnational crimes that also implicate China and Russia.
(QG - Source : Reuters / Transitional Justice Working Group / Picture: © Pixabay)