China will allow a group of 19 North Korean refugees to leave for South Korea in a reversal of its normal repatriation policy, a report said yesterday.
The refugees were rounded up by Chinese authorities in the northeastern city of Shenyang in September.
They were originally due to be sent back to the North despite the risk of harsh punishment there, but Seoul intervened on their behalf.
“It appears that the Chinese government has made an exception in this case in allowing the defectors to go to South Korea,” Yonhap news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying.
The South Korean foreign ministry could not confirm the report, saying there had been no word from China on its intentions.
Rights groups have criticized China’s policy of repatriating North Koreans as economic migrants, rather than giving them refugee status.
The source said last month’s visit to South Korea by Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) may have had an impact in the case of the 19.
A rights group said separately that a total of 23 North Koreans were arrested late last month in various Chinese provinces, including Shandong, Henan, Liaoning and Yunnan, and are facing deportation.
“Crackdowns on North Korean refugees hiding in China have been intensified this year,” an official of the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees said.
More than 21,700 North Koreans in total have fled their impoverished and hunger-stricken homeland since the 1950-1953 Korean War, the vast majority in recent years.
They typically escape on foot to China, hide out and then travel to a third country to seek resettlement in South Korea. Some South Korea-based activists, mostly linked to Christian evangelist groups, work in northeast China to try to help the escapees travel along what is called the “underground railroad.”
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including