Korean Job Discussion Forums

[europe2seoul]

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200701/200701180012.html

S.Korean Consulate �Failed POWs� Families�

Nine family members of long-term prisoners of war in North Korea were sent back to the North after a South Korean consulate in China failed to protect them. The Consulate in Shenyang has already been given an official warning over its offhand response when kidnapped fisherman Choi Uk-il asked for help there last month. The Monthly Chosun published Thursday reports that nine relatives of three POWs were arrested by Chinese police only a day after they checked into a guesthouse near the consulate.
They were the wives, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law and grandsons and daughter of long-term POWs. Guided to the guesthouse by two consular officials, they were all hauled out by police the following day after a Chinese witness reported them. Police then investigated how they escaped North Korea and transferred them to police in the border town of Dandong opposite Sinuiju, North Korea. They were all deported to the North in late October, the magazine says.

Most of them had escaped the North last July. Their South Korean families watched as they handed themselves over to the consulate. Two of the three POWs had died in North Korea while the third escaped, secretly returned to South Korea in early 2006 and now lives here. By law, all North Koreans are South Korean citizens.

In a letter to the consulate last July, the grandson of a late POW pleaded for help from the South Korean government. "We can no longer live in China. We live in fear every day and have nightmares every night. The only way for us to live is to go to South Korea, our grandfather�s homeland,� the monthly quotes him as saying. Around Oct. 20 last year, South Korean officials met families of the POWs and told them it had become "difficult" for their North Korean families to come to Seoul. According to the families in South Korea, most of their relatives were sent to concentration camps after their forcible repatriation.



BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6274297.stm


S Korea 'regrets' refugee mix-up
South Korea says it deeply regrets failing to stop nine refugees from North Korea being deported back there from China.
The nine were arrested by Chinese police in the city of Shenyang, after they had been placed in a small hotel by South Korea's consulate there.

The refugees said they were relatives of three South Korean prisoners of war.

The same consulate was criticised recently for its treatment of Choi Uk-il, an abductee who fled the North.

Diplomats were accused of initially giving the cold shoulder to the 67-year-old Mr Choi when he arrived in Shenyang, 31 years after he was abducted by the North while out fishing.

Seoul has already apologised over the case of Mr Choi, which caused uproar in South Korea.

Tip-off

South Korea's foreign ministry said the government found it "deeply regrettable" that the nine relatives were unable to come to the country "despite its best efforts".


"Taking lessons from this incident, the government will double its efforts to help prisoners of war and their relatives come home safely," it said in a statement.

The nine fled across the North Korean-Chinese border into Shenyang last July, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

They were placed in a small private hotel by South Korean diplomats in the city, who apparently believed it to be safe.

However, they were arrested in October by Chinese police after a tip-off from the hotel owner and were sent back to North Korea, the newspaper reports.

China does not recognise fleeing North Koreans as refugees, although it has allowed defectors to leave the country if they take refuge at a foreign diplomatic mission.

South Korea believes as many as 485 of its citizens have been kidnapped by the North since the Korean War ended in a ceasefire in 1953.

North Korea insists any South Koreans inside the country defected voluntarily and are not held against their will.

The abductee issue is also a big issue in Japan, where at least 13 people are believed to have been kidnapped by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s.