Korean defectors head South

2004-07-27 07:59

Seoul, South Korea - Two hundred North Koreans flew into the South Korean capital on Tuesday from an unidentified Southeast Asian country as part of the largest-ever group of defectors to reach the capitalist South, according to a news report.

They arrived at an airport outside Seoul on a chartered Asiana Airlines plane arranged by the South Korean government, Yonhap news agency said. A second group was expected to arrive on Wednesday, bringing the total to 460, the report said.

A trickle of defectors to the South has grown into a steady stream in recent years as more North Koreans flee hunger and repression in their communist country, mostly fleeing across its long border with China before heading to other countries.

South Korean officials have declined to reveal where the group of 460 is arriving from, the Yonhap report said.

The defectors were swiftly taken away in five buses. The government typically puts defectors through a month of questioning before giving them a two-month orientation course on how to make their way in their new home.

More than 60 percent of the 460 defectors are women and children, and most of them had illegally entered the Southeast Asian country via China, Yonhap said.

Human rights groups have said that hundreds of North Koreans were living in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, and were eager to travel to South Korea.

Previously, defecting North Koreans have arrived in the South in small groups of three or four, or a dozen.

Last year, the number of defectors arriving in the South reached 1 285, up from 1 140 in 2002 and 583 in 2001.

North Korea has been depending on outside help to feed its 22 million people since 1995.

The Koreas were divided in 1945. Their border remains sealed and heavily guarded by nearly two million troops on both sides following the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

- AP