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Couple hid in cave for two years to escape N Korea
telegraph.co.uk ^ | 17/07/2005 | Peter Goff

Posted on 07/17/2005 6:44:45 AM PDT by flitton

A North Korean couple who fled to China in search of a better life have told how they spent two years hiding in a burrow dug in snowbound mountains to avoid being captured and sent home.

Sung Kyung-il and his wife, Chu Myung-hee, survived bitterly cold winters and the threat of starvation after digging a cave in the side of Dokgol Mountain, in the rugged terrain of northeast China.

Like many other North Koreans, the couple escaped the dictatorial Stalinist regime and a near constant famine under the mistaken impression that China would offer a better standard of living and more freedom.

They quickly learnt, however, that they faced being deported by the Chinese police back to North Korea, where they would have risked torture, imprisonment and possible execution.

Beijing regards the refugees as illegal economic migrants and regularly repatriates them.

To avoid arrest, the pair fled to a remote spot in the border region, hacking out a shelter from the mountain's frozen slopes and covering it with grass and foliage.

They lived there for more than two years before escaping China to resettle in the South Korean city of Daegu, where their remarkable story of survival has just emerged.

"Other North Koreans were mostly single men, but I had a wife," Mr Sung, whose name is a pseudonym, revealed in an interview with Radio Free Asia. "I was so agitated I decided to go into the mountains.

"Now we are sitting here and talking about the time when we built the house, but it was so painful then. The place was untouched by humans, and the ground was frozen so we could not dig very deep.

"We had to cut the trees and saw wood while we were hungry. We were never fed enough. But we thought we must live."

Mr Sung said that like most North Koreans, he had undergone military service and had been trained in survival and camouflage techniques. That knowledge, together with skills he picked up in the building trade, helped to keep the couple alive.

Nonetheless, the environment around their bolt hole was so harsh that they were often reduced to living hand to mouth. "Sometimes, we dug up and ate the potatoes we planted, even though they were not ripe, because we had no other food," he said. "We had to have some food stored for winter time. So we dried vegetables and mushrooms."

Occasionally, driven by hunger and the desperate desire for something other than vegetables to eat, they risked arrest to head down the mountain and scavenge for food in a nearby village. Sympathetic locals would sometimes give them food in exchange for some of their own offerings.

"The people gave us some kimchi [a spicy pickled cabbage] out of pity. Kimchi was the food that I always craved," said Mr Sung.

There are more than 100,000 North Koreans living secretly in China, according to estimates by international aid workers. As more and more have arrived in border areas, Chinese police have launched campaigns to hunt them down and drive them back to North Korea. The lucky few slip into embassies and consulates where some are granted refugee status and transferred to South Korea via a third country. More frequent, however, are reports of them being raped, trafficked and exploited while in China.

Defectors shudder at the prospect of being sent back because leaving North Korea without authorisation is illegal and a mark of disloyalty to the regime. Even those refugees who return willingly can face years in forced labour camps.

According to another defector, Kim Myung-chul, a second couple have spent even longer living in a hole, on Maban Mountain, in the same Chinese province.

"I visited them and slept in the hole for a few nights and learnt that they had not planned to live in the hole," Mr Kim said. "They thought going to China would guarantee food and survival. But when they came the reality was harsh."

He said that the couple had a radio which they ran on an old car battery, allowing them to keep in touch with the outside world.

"For North Koreans in China, the word 'repatriation' is more dreadful than the word 'death'," Mr Kim said.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: koreandefectors; northkorea

1 posted on 07/17/2005 6:44:46 AM PDT by flitton
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Ping. Can you do the ping list please.


2 posted on 07/17/2005 6:45:32 AM PDT by flitton
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To: flitton

Of course what do these people know I guess they haven't read the New York Times article by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Which states that the North Koreans love their country.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444451/posts

I mean how stupid of the survivors of North Korea to think they know better than the NY slimes......./s


3 posted on 07/17/2005 6:53:05 AM PDT by federal
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To: federal
Yes, the sheer madness of people whould would rather (literally) live in a hole in the ground than in North Korea /sarcasm off/.

Remind me again why I don't bother with the NYT website.

4 posted on 07/17/2005 7:00:41 AM PDT by flitton
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To: flitton

I think people would rather starve to death in freedom than starve in slavery to a tyrannical regime, and be among the living dead.


5 posted on 07/17/2005 7:16:47 AM PDT by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: flitton

These people need to rise up and fight the regime.


6 posted on 07/17/2005 7:18:30 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: flitton; devolve; Happy2BMe

>>Beijing regards the refugees as illegal economic migrants and regularly repatriates them.<<

What?? The Chinese don't view them as cheap labor? Gee, I wonder why?


7 posted on 07/17/2005 7:28:59 AM PDT by B4Ranch ( Report every illegal alien that you meet. Call 866-347-2423, Employers use 888-464-4218)
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To: coconutt2000

I agree, at least with freedom there is hope that things can improve. Thankfully for this couple things did get better.


8 posted on 07/17/2005 7:29:09 AM PDT by flitton
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

They need to pay a call on anti-American South Koreans.


9 posted on 07/17/2005 7:51:00 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Scratch a Liberal. Uncover a Fascist)
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