BY MATT RUSLING, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[to lead story, "Re-educating North Koreans in South Korea"]

North Korea's state of impoverishment has spawned a steadily increasing influx of refugees into South Korea, from about ten a year in the early '90s to 1,894 in 2004 (and a 45.7 percent increase from 2003), according to the Korean Ministry of Unification, a government agency that promotes peace between the two Koreas. Currently, the ministry puts the number of North Koreans living in South Korea at 6,000. Estimates of the number in China vary widely from 60,000 to 200,000. The number slogging their way out of North Korea is unknown, but activists say what was once a trickle has in recent years become a flood. In spite of the numbers, the road to Seoul has not gotten any easier.

Tim Peters, who is head of Helping Hands Korea, an organization that helps North Koreans in crisis, and a Christian activist who has testified on the refugee issue before Congress, said sources tell him the number of North Koreans in China could be as high as 400,000. "Sometimes repatriations (from China back to North Korea) can be 400 a week."

Accordingly, the Chinese have also expanded by two-fold a holding facility by the border to house more than 800 people, he said.

BY MATT RUSLING, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[to the sidebar story, "The Perilous Road to Seoul"]

Dong Seok Kim shows the scars
inflicted by North Korean authorities
Photo: Matthew Rusling

Kim, whose name is an alias used to protect relatives in the North from being persecuted for his "crime" of leaving the country, is one of around 6,000 North Koreans in the South, according to the Korean Ministry of Unification, a South Korean government organization promoting peace between the two Koreas.