China has not stopped repatriating NK defectors: report

Radio Free Asia, a private U.S. nonprofit radio operator, has denied recent media reports saying China has stopped sending North Korean escapees back to their impoverished country.

The broadcaster on Saturday quoted U.S. congressional sources as saying U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told congressional officials that a recent report by the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun claiming that China has suspended repatriation of the defectors was untrue.

An official at South Korea’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry also said, “There`s no intelligence that China had stopped its forced repatriation."

The newspaper said April 18 that Beijing had stopped repatriating the escapees due to discontent over Pyongyang’s failure to inform China of its plan to launch a long-range rocket.

Radio Free Asia also quoted Guterres as saying that while the repatriation of defectors is one of the biggest issues, human trafficking victimizing North Korean women who fled their country is also serious.