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Thursday April 26, 4:40 PM3 N. Korean teen defectors freed by Laos arrive in S. Korea(Kyodo) _ Three North Korean teenage defectors released Tuesday from detention in Laos arrived in South Korea on Thursday, Yonhap News Agency reported.The three, a 12-year-old boy and two girls aged 14 and 17, arrived from the Southeast Asian country where they had been detained since last November, Yonhap quoted an unidentified source as saying. Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization that had been working to secure the teens safe passage to the third country, said they were released Tuesday from a jail in the Lao capital Vientiane and taken to the South Korean Embassy there. It identified them as 13-year-old Choi Hyang, her 12-year-old brother Choi Hyok and their female traveling companion Choi Hyang Mi, 17. The North Koreans were arrested by Lao border guard police in November while trying to cross the Mekong River to Thailand and were jailed for immigration violations. The Japanese NGO and South Korean NGOs had expressed concern through a petition drive that if they were repatriated to North Korea, they would face severe punishment. According to Yonhap, more than 10,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the 1950-53 Korean War. The number has sharply increased in recent years as economic conditions and political oppression have worsened in the North. |
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