By Bryan Kay
China says they are migrants, and the U.N. refers to them as detained. Either way, fleeing North Koreans could face forced labor or execution if sent back.
They beat paths worn solid by so many who came before them. Some who sought riches and returned. Smugglers. Bootleggers. Shadowy government agents. Others who left with no intention of retracing their steps – at least willingly. People in flight for their lives. Those escaping repression. Some even starving.
As the latest to fall under the full glare of the international radar wearing their boot prints into this fertile ground, they are deemed outlaws at home, personas non grata on the other side – placed somewhere amid the sorrows of the latter category. Having slipped across their country’s forbidden frontier into China, likely in bitter winter temperatures, they bore a familiar hope: to reach South Korea. For they are North Koreans – defectors in pursuit of the promised land.
Or they were until disaster struck.
Read the full story at The Diplomat