Two North Korean flood reduction employees in North Pyongan province briefly fled to China final month, however had been shortly apprehended by Chinese language police and repatriated.
In accordance with a supply within the province on Tuesday, two members of the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade got three days’ depart to purchase provides.
The brigade command ordered the 2 to report their whereabouts day by day whereas on depart. However when the 2 went into solitary confinement and didn’t return, the command reported them lacking to the Ministry of State Safety. The ministry, in flip, requested Chinese language police in Dandong to help within the investigation.
About 14 hours later, the Dandong police knowledgeable the ministry that they’d arrested two suspicious-looking males. They turned them over to the Ministry of State Safety the following day.
“Whereas in custody, the 2 people confessed why they went AWOL, however their causes had been so easy that the ministry didn’t contemplate the matter politically severe,” the supply stated.
The 2 stated they got here to Sinuiju for the primary time after taking part in lots of development tasks in Samjiyon, Hyesan and the Sodusu River in Taehongdan, Ryanggang province. Each reduction employees confessed that they crossed into China out of curiosity, attracted by the brilliant lights of the nation throughout the river.
They stated they’d no intention of defecting – they merely swam throughout to China to journey for 3 days after which return to North Korea. They added that they believed all they needed to do was pay the brigade some money for the times they didn’t work.
Throughout their interrogation, the 2 escapees described their impressions of China:
“The China we noticed from Sinuiju was strikingly totally different from what we had seen from Ryanggang province. In China, we witnessed folks freely having fun with barbecued lamb skewers and beer late into the evening. This scene of freedom, peace, and luxury was one thing we realized we would by no means expertise once more in our lives, even when we had been reborn 100 occasions over.”
The supply stated that the interrogation’s aftermath revealed a paradoxical method by North Korean authorities. Whereas initially encouraging honesty, they severely punished the escapees for his or her candid accounts. Nonetheless, in an uncommon transfer, the ministry in the end downplayed the incident to guard the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade’s fame.
The younger males had been expelled from the brigade and despatched house with strict orders to stay silent about their experiences in China, slightly than dealing with extra extreme political penalties sometimes related to such escape makes an attempt, the supply stated.
The Every day NK works with a community of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For safety causes, their identities stay nameless.
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