North Koreans struggle to flee
Just 67 North Koreans arrived in South Korea last year, the Unification Ministry says, marking a second year of record-low refugee arrivals as North Korea remains shuttered and more reclusive than ever during the coronavirus pandemic.
Most of those who arrived in the South in 2022 were not escapees fleeing North Korea directly but instead were people who were in China or Russia, according to groups that support defectors.
North Korea sealed its border with China to tourists in January 2020 after the outbreak of the coronavirus. It also halted trade with China, its economic lifeline, sparking an acute shortage of food and medical supplies. North Koreans typically escape by crossing the border into China.
North Korea also has cracked down on people travelling within the country, making it more difficult for people to reach the border. And now China is struggling with another dramatic Covid-19 surge.
First-hand information from those who enter and leave the totalitarian country – including defectors – has dried up. Most of the international aid workers and foreign diplomats who were stationed there have left.
Human rights advocates say they are increasingly concerned about the situation inside the country, one of the poorest in the world and one that struggles with chronic food shortages.
‘‘The drop in defection has nothing to do with better living conditions inside the country, as it is purely because of tightened control and repression,’’ said Yoon Yeo-sang, director of the Seoul-based Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights.
Crackdowns along the ChinaNorth Korea border had become more pervasive than ever because of a high-tech surveillance system, he said.
Despite the heightened security, some North Koreans are still risking their lives to attempt an escape, according to Daily NK, a Seoul-based news outlet that runs an informant network inside the country.
Sparked by North Korea’s deadly famine in the 1990s, the flow of escapees peaked in 2009, with nearly 3000 arrivals.
But in 2012, the number of defectors nearly halved from the previous year to 1502, coinciding with the beginning of Kim’s rule. He tightened controls on the long border with China and increased surveillance, erecting fencing and setting traps.
Despite this, the number of escapees entering South Korea continued to exceed 1000 every year until the pandemic hit in 2020. It then plummeted to double digits.
Elizabeth Salmon, the United Nations special envoy for North Korean human rights, estimates that as many as 2000 North Korean escapees are detained in China and face the risk of repatriation when North Korea reopens its border.
The Hanawon resettlement centre, where defectors get a crash course on life in the capitalist South, has capacity for more than 1000 people but currently accommodates only about 30.