ID :
211074
Tue, 10/04/2011 - 11:21
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/211074
The shortlink copeid
(2nd LD) 9 N. Korean defectors arrive in Seoul from Japan
(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with foreign ministry spokesman's quotes, details; ADDS more photos, byline; AMENDS headline)
By Kim Deok-hyun
SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Yonhap) -- A group of nine North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul on Tuesday, after having been under protective custody in Japan for nearly three weeks, officials said.
The North Koreans -- three men, three women and three children -- were found drifting aboard a small wooden boat off Japan's west coast on Sept. 13, ending a six-day journey of rare defection by sea from the North to Japan.
It is the first time in about four years that defectors from North Korea arrived in the South after reaching Japan by sea.
"All of the North Koreans expressed their wish to defect to South Korea and the government accepted them from a humanitarian perspective with respect to their free will," Seoul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said.
Cho declined to divulge further details, including the North Korean defectors' identities, citing concerns for their safety.
Upon their arrival at the international airport in Incheon, west of Seoul, at around 11:50 a.m. on Tuesday via a Korean Air flight, the defectors were whisked away in small buses.
They wore hooded jackets, hats, white masks and sunglasses to cover their faces in order to protect their identities.
A diplomatic source in Seoul said that one of the defectors claimed to be a grandson of Paek Nam-un, who once served as chairman of the North's Supreme People's Assembly. Paek died in 1979.
"It is a matter that needs to be confirmed in an interrogation," the source said on the condition of anonymity.
Officials who were involved in the transportation of the defectors said that they appeared to be in relatively good health, although one child vomited on the plane because of apparent motion sickness.
One of the defectors had planned to make a brief announcement after the group's arrival, but the National Intelligence Service, South Korea's top spy agency, changed the plan, the officials said.
The defectors were immediately sent to a state-operated temporary base for defectors from the North.
More than 21,000 North Koreans have fled their impoverished communist country since the 1950-53 Korean War, with defections surging in recent years amid chronic food shortages and harsh political oppression.
Most North Koreans crossed the country's land border with China to defect to South Korea.
In 1987, 11 North Koreans drifted into a central Japanese port and later defected to South Korea in the first defection via Japan. A family of four North Koreans reached a northern Japan in 2007, and they were also sent to South Korea.
kdh@yna.co.kr
By Kim Deok-hyun
SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Yonhap) -- A group of nine North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul on Tuesday, after having been under protective custody in Japan for nearly three weeks, officials said.
The North Koreans -- three men, three women and three children -- were found drifting aboard a small wooden boat off Japan's west coast on Sept. 13, ending a six-day journey of rare defection by sea from the North to Japan.
It is the first time in about four years that defectors from North Korea arrived in the South after reaching Japan by sea.
"All of the North Koreans expressed their wish to defect to South Korea and the government accepted them from a humanitarian perspective with respect to their free will," Seoul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said.
Cho declined to divulge further details, including the North Korean defectors' identities, citing concerns for their safety.
Upon their arrival at the international airport in Incheon, west of Seoul, at around 11:50 a.m. on Tuesday via a Korean Air flight, the defectors were whisked away in small buses.
They wore hooded jackets, hats, white masks and sunglasses to cover their faces in order to protect their identities.
A diplomatic source in Seoul said that one of the defectors claimed to be a grandson of Paek Nam-un, who once served as chairman of the North's Supreme People's Assembly. Paek died in 1979.
"It is a matter that needs to be confirmed in an interrogation," the source said on the condition of anonymity.
Officials who were involved in the transportation of the defectors said that they appeared to be in relatively good health, although one child vomited on the plane because of apparent motion sickness.
One of the defectors had planned to make a brief announcement after the group's arrival, but the National Intelligence Service, South Korea's top spy agency, changed the plan, the officials said.
The defectors were immediately sent to a state-operated temporary base for defectors from the North.
More than 21,000 North Koreans have fled their impoverished communist country since the 1950-53 Korean War, with defections surging in recent years amid chronic food shortages and harsh political oppression.
Most North Koreans crossed the country's land border with China to defect to South Korea.
In 1987, 11 North Koreans drifted into a central Japanese port and later defected to South Korea in the first defection via Japan. A family of four North Koreans reached a northern Japan in 2007, and they were also sent to South Korea.
kdh@yna.co.kr
