[keat]

To’ or ‘FROM’?................Who would want to escape TO North Korea?..............

From North Korea no doubt. I’ve read some stories of people escaping and you're pretty much home free if you make it to China. From there you can fairly easily get to South Korea.

[GeronL]

China often sends people back to NK

Not kidding

There are groups that hide and smuggle escapees from NK, they need to move them from China to a third country before they can be free enough to go to South Korea.

[GeronL]

A frigid November day pressed against the windows of a shabby apartment building in the Chinese city of Yanji, ten miles from the North Korean border. Three stories up, footsteps stopped outside a door. At the sound, two young women hurried to a back room and shrank against a wall. Then came a knock. The women, defectors from North Korea, bowed their heads, expecting the worst. If the Chinese police found them without identity cards, they would be deported in handcuffs and chains. Back in North Korea, they would be sentenced to years of hard labor in a prison camp.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/02/north-korea/oneill-text