Activists fear for North Korean refugees repatriated by China | WPN World People News

Despite international pressure, China has repatriated all 31 North Korean refugees it arrested last month, activists said Friday, fearing for their safety as Pyongyang is known to treat defectors very harshly.

Having fled the country late last year during the mourning period for late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, the activists said the repatriated refugees could even face execution for defection.

"They were returned to the North clandestinely over the past two weeks," Do Hee-Yun, head of the Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, told AFP news agency.

A total of 31 refugees were arrested in three lots at different places in China.

Rumours have been rife near the border that Kim Jong-Un, who took over the leader's mantel after the death of his father Kim Jong-II on December 17 last year, had issued a shoot-to-kill order against people attempting to cross the border during mourning period and also called for stern punishment for their relatives.

Though North Korea has been known to be more lenient about people crossing over to the more prosperous South Korea in search of food, those caught defecting have met with severe punishment, according to Solidarity, a group of North Korean defectors based in Seoul.

Though Seoul has repeatedly urged China to treat fugitives from the North as refugees and not to repatriate them, Beijing has declined to do so stating they are economic migrants.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Thursday expressed "deep concern" over the fate of North Korean defectors in China, which has emerged as a key diplomatic issue between Seoul and Beijing, according to his office.

In a meeting with visiting South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, Ban "shared the deep concern with the Foreign Minister about the dislocated people from the DPRK, and encouraged the concerned parties to do their utmost to find a mutually agreeable solution," the U.N. leader's office said in a press release.

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, also reiterated his worries about the severe food and nutrition problems in the North and welcomed some progress in talks between the U.S. and North Korea, Ban's office said.

The UN refugee agency and the rights watchdog Amnesty International have also urged Beijing not to send back the North Koreans as returnees are sent to labour camps and subjected to torture.

US Representative Chris Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, urged Washington to link treatment of refugees to its decision last week to deliver 240,000 metric tons of food aid to North Korea.

More than 21,700 North Koreans have fled to the South since the 1950-1953 war, the vast majority in recent years.

They typically escape on foot to China, hide out and then travel to a third country to seek resettlement in the South.

Source: The Asia News.Net