RFA BREAKING NEWS : China holds more North Korean defectors than reported

China holds more North Korean defectors than reported February 26, 2012 — China has detained more North Korean defectors this month than previously thought by monitoring groups, with most of the refugees facing imminent deportation and possible execution at home, sources say. The sources close to a U.S. non-governmental group, which has workers on the ground in China to help North Korean defectors, also gave the names of several of those caught in a bid to debunk claims by Pyongyang that there were no such defections. Nearly 40 North Koreans were detained as they crossed the border into China in separate incidents this month, according to the U.S. non-governmental group, the sources told RFA. Monitoring groups and media reports had earlier stated that between 29 and 33 North Korean defectors were caught by Chinese authorities in February, of whom nine were believed to have been already repatriated. Beijing had deported the nine a week ago despite pleas by Seoul not to send them back as they faced the risk of being tortured or even executed by the hardline regime in Pyongyang. "Reports have stated that the number of defectors facing imminent forcible repatriation ranges from 29 to 33, but according to this NGO’s records and their [sources] in the field, the number of those recently arrested is 39," one source told RFA. "According to the same NGO, it appears that nine of the 39 were repatriated about a week ago," the source said, declining to name the NGO due to security reasons. The NGO was involved in helping five of the 39 defectors before they were caught by the Chinese authorities, according to the sources. It identified the five as Lee Seung-Bok, Chae Keum-Hwa, Lee Myung-Sook, Kang Eun-Hyang and Myung-Kwon. They were among a group of defectors detained by Chinese security police in the the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, the sources said. "We are providing the names of some of these defectors to show that North Korea's denial of the Chinese detention of the defectors has no basis," the source said. Red Cross Pyongyang said on Saturday that the issue over North Korean defectors was an attempt by South Korea to defame its communist neighbor. "The North Korean defector issue is not an issue of refugees but the outcome of efforts by hostile forces to isolate the DRPK in the international community and to lure and abduct our people," the North's Red Cross Society said in a statement, using the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK. South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported last week that nine defectors had been repatriated. "My brother in North Korea called me, and said that my female cousin who crossed into China in late February was caught and sent back to North Korea," a North Korean defector told Yonhap, asking not to be named. She said that along with her cousin, eight other North Korean defectors were also caught by Chinese police and repatriated to their homeland. UN meeting South Korea has said that it plans to raise China's forcible repatriation of North Korean defectors at a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Switzerland later this month. Rights group Amnesty International had said that if returned to North Korea, illegal border crossers typically face arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and forced labor. They are also at risk of enforced disappearance in North Korea, Amnesty said. Although China is a state party to the U.N. Refugee Convention, it has prevented the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, from gaining access to North Koreans in China. 'Economic reasons' China argues that the North Koreans crossed the border for "economic reasons" but rights groups have said that Beijing's claim does not hold water. "Even if North Korea's endemic economic crisis may be one of the reasons of defection, its causes are political and not exclusively economic," said Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. "Moreover, if forcibly repatriated, North Korean refugees in China face harsh punishment. So, once in China, they automatically become refugee sur place [refugee on site] and should be granted refugee status," he said. 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. Reported by Parameswaran Ponnudurai. 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