15 starving North Koreans were killed for fleeing to China in a worsening refugee crisis
Posted on 03/05/2008 4:33:02 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
North Korea has publicly executed 15 starving people, mostly women, for illegally entering neighbouring China in search of food, an aid group said yesterday.
The 13 women and two men were shot on a bridge in the north-eastern town of Onseong as local residents watched. It was the second mass execution to be reported this week.
The group of 15 were sentenced to death for illegally crossing the border into China or for helping others to do so, to ask for help, in money or food, from relatives living there.
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15 starving North Koreans were killed for fleeing to China in a worsening refugee crisis
The report of the shootings, on February 20, came from the South Korean group, Good Friends, which works in the North.
Officials in South Korea's unification ministry, who handle relations with the impoverished communist North, could not confirm the bridge killings.
But Good Friends said residents were appalled by what they saw.
One resident said: "The shooting was too much - all those people did it for their livelihood. They got too harsh punishment. Everyone is anxious about a lack of food."
Good Friends, citing a local official, said the execution was aimed at deterring an expected surge of people illegally crossing the border this spring.
It has become a daily routine for a few residents to disappear and illegally cross the border to visit relatives in China.
"We shot them to send a warning to people," the official said.
Good Friends said unauthorised border crossings are normally punishable with a maximum seven year jail sentence.
North Korea suffers severe food shortages and frontier provinces provide opportunities for residents to get supplies before returning.
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Secretive: North Koreans, who worship dead leader Kim Il-Sung, face severe food shortages
Others flee their homeland through China, the refugees often travelling to Southeast Asia hoping to win resettlement in South Korea.
Rights groups estimate tens of thousands of North Koreans are hiding in northeast China.
In another alleged incident of North Korean zero tolerance of anyone suspected of trying to leave the country, a South Korean newspaper yesterday reported North Korea had executed 22 fishermen on their return after straying out of the country's waters by mistake.
Having drifted into South Korean territory, they told officials they had no intention of claiming asylum.
They said they strayed accidentally while fishing for clams and oysters. They were sent back to North Korea where the fishermen were shot dead by agents of North Korea's national security agency.
Ping!
At this rate of executions, there won’t be a food shortage.
I’m beginning to wonder if that’s the plan.
Talk about evil. We gots to take this regime down somehow.
These are the type of people that B.H. Obama wants us to negotiate with.
More likely, they played excerpts from the New York Philharmonic concert.
Was the NY Philharmonic hired to play in the background?
Meanwhile, the world sits on its hands.
If Chia Pet keep doing this he be roaney
you gotta love that communist paradise, sounds like a great place to visit
Can we not just tell korea pet to stuff it and rattle his cage with harsh language ? Why do we constantly walk on eggs with this bunch of losers?
>> Was the NY Philharmonic hired to play in the background?
Yes, let’s remind those idiots about their contributions to tyranny.
SOOOO sad!
KJI is one EVIL mofo.
Ok, I’m oblivious as to how things work in North Korea.
-Does KJI control every aspect of folks’ lives including growing their own food the same way Stalin controlled the peasants in the Ukraine?
-Do they work to grow food only to have it monitored and taken from them or do they not even have seeds to plant?
-Does KJI even allow aid in the form of seeds that can be planted and harvested or does he only accept aid in the form of $$ and Hennessy (I hear he loves expensive cognac)?
When will N. Korea host Olympic games ??
“We shot them to send a warning to people,” the official said.
Starving in NK is illegal don’t cha know?
I’ve read that when they are caught trying to cross the border, they are pierced with a large hook through the hand or behind the collarbone and tied together with other people like a string of fish and forced to march in a line this way.
Words fail me.
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