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Activist: 64 N. Korean defectors held by Myanmar rebels

Posted July. 13, 2013 08:09,   

한국어

Dozens of North Korean defectors are held by a rebel group in Myanmar and subjected to forced labor and prostitution, a South Korean activist claimed Friday.

Kim Hee-tae, an activist for North Korean human rights, said that 64 North Koreans are held in a rebel-controlled district near Tachilek, a town on the border with Thailand. He claimed that the North Koreans who fled their impoverished country were caught by the rebels on their way to Thailand via China. Among them, men are shackled and exploited in forced labor on opium poppy fields, while women are forced to work at local restaurants and unlicensed liquor factories and are used as prostitutes for locals and Chinese. They have been held there for one to nine years.

In a telephone interview with the Dong-A Ilbo, Kim said he learned about their enslavement after a North Korean woman who was forced to live with a rebel leader asked a South Korean missionary living in the region to get her Korean food. “I visited the place from July 3 to 9 to verify the captivity,” he said. Most of the detainees are women and 25 North Korean defectors have died there due to hard labor and diseases.

Kim noted that the rebel group is demanding a ransom of 5,000 U.S. dollars per person. “I could not demand that the rebels let me see the detained North Koreans because I didn`t have the ransoms,” he said, adding he plans to return to the region next week if he raised the ransoms through money donation campaigns with South Korean Christian churches.

He claimed that they are not the first North Koreans to be held by Myanmar rebels. “In 2006, 80 North Korean defectors were detained by rebels and I had six of them released after paying 3,000 dollars per person and brought them to South Korea,” he said. He argues that although he could not rescue any more of them because of funds shortages but that the South Korean foreign ministry must be aware of their captivity because the six people left Myanmar via the South Korean embassy in the Southeast Asian country.

Another North Korea human rights activist also said that some other North Korean escapees had been held by Myanmar rebels for two to three years before being released.

The South Korean authorities, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, showed a cautious attitude about the claims, saying they were trying to verify them. The Myanmar border area is de facto autonomous regions of the rebels, which is under limited influence of the Yangon. The South Korean ministry restricts its citizens from traveling to the regions.

If the claims about the large-scale captivity of North Korea defectors prove true, the ministry will likely come under public criticism, yet again, for the big hole in protecting them. In May, nine North Korean juveniles and children were caught in Laos and repatriated to the North. After the incident, the foreign ministry said it would generally improve its protection and transportation of North Korean defectors, establish cooperation systems tailored to conditions in different countries, and strengthen its communication with North Korea human rights groups.