The corpses of political prison camp inmates are mutilated, cremated and buried in mass graves, Daily NK has learned. According to a source, the entire process occurs under the supervision of medical officers attached to the Ministry of State Security.
“In the political prison camps, there are civilian doctors and medical officers wearing army uniforms,” a source in North Korea told Daily NK on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Both the civilian doctors and army medical officers can perform medical duties, but the medical officers need to sign off on death confirmations and the processing of bodies.”
North Korean political prison camps are divided into those run by the Ministry of Social Security and those run by the Ministry of State Security. The source’s testimony suggests that in camps run by the Ministry of State Security, doctors attached to the ministry handle all inmate deaths. Daily NK was unable to confirm how inmate deaths are processed in camps run by the Ministry of Social Security.
“The medical officer writes up custody documents stamped by the head of the camp and the camp’s name,” the source said. “The documents confirm that the dead person is no longer of this world, as per internal camp regulations.”
Moreover, the corpses of dead inmates are reportedly mutilated while being processed.
Daily NK reported in November that the bodies of inmates who perish in the political prison camps are stuffed into cremation ovens after snapping their arms, legs, and back, or buried on hillsides under the supervision of army medical doctors.
“In North Korea, there’s the thinking that people who die in the political prison camps haven’t washed away their sins,” the source said. “The breaking of the back, arms and legs signifies another execution for the crime of dying as one pleased. It’s also aimed at demonstrating to the living what will happen if they die.
“It’s an old regulatory practice to execute dead prisoners one more time to surely brand their deaths and then process the bodies. At first, they broke all the joints, but now, they break just the big joints.”
Bodies are reportedly buried in mass graves as well.
According to the source, the bodies of dead political prison camp inmates are cremated, and the ashes are dumped into streams or on mountains nearby. Otherwise, the mutilated bodies are buried on hillsides in twos or threes.
“After the government’s declaration of the end of COVID-19 in August of last year, the authorities issued a regulation against mass burials,” the source said. “Before this, they dug a hole in a nearby hillside where they wanted to bury the bodies and buried them all at once. But now that you can’t do that, they bury them in small groups or, if they can, they incinerate the bodies in furnaces and dump the ashes.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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