| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| N Koreans risk lives for freedom |
| 2004-06-03 |
| A group of North Koreans who on Tuesday launched a bid for asylum in China’s capital Beijing spoke to the BBC’s Louisa Lim about their shadowy lives in hiding. Their names have been changed as they fear reprisals against family members still living in North Korea. They looked thin and malnourished, but they were marshalling their strength as they prepared to try to seek asylum - the culmination of a long journey through China. Ms Na, a pretty young woman with a shy smile, left North Korea two years ago when the outside world believed the worst of the food shortages were over. "I left because there was no food, but also because I wanted freedom. I wanted to be able to live how I wanted to live," she said. "It was very difficult in North Korea. I saw people dying on the streets, people starving, people whose faces were wasted away from the lack of food. I didn’t want that any more." Despite a constant barrage of propaganda telling North Koreans their country is doing fine, many think otherwise. The North Koreans told me most people in the Hermit Kingdom now disliked their leader, Kim Jong-il, and blamed him for the lack of food. But of the thousands who flee across the border to China, few realise how hard life will be. Yoon Woong-joo, a weary-looking man, said life in China was as filled with fear as life back home. "I can’t find the words to say how hard it is," he said. "It’s difficult to find work, and sometimes we don’t get paid or we get beaten up. We can’t go to the police or they’ll send us back." EFL |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #1 "We can’t go to the police or they’ll send us back." It'd be nice if our police helped to send our illegal aliens back. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-06-03 2:36:21 PM |