Two North Korean flood relief workers in North Pyongan province briefly fled to China last month, but were quickly apprehended by Chinese police and repatriated.
According to a source in the province on Tuesday, two members of the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade were given three days’ leave to buy supplies.
The brigade command ordered the two to report their whereabouts daily while on leave. But when the two went into solitary confinement and failed to return, the command reported them missing to the Ministry of State Security. The ministry, in turn, asked Chinese police in Dandong to assist in the investigation.
About 14 hours later, the Dandong police informed the ministry that they had arrested two suspicious-looking men. They turned them over to the Ministry of State Security the next day.
“While in custody, the two individuals confessed why they went AWOL, but their reasons were so simple that the ministry did not consider the matter politically serious,” the source said.
The two said they came to Sinuiju for the first time after participating in many construction projects in Samjiyon, Hyesan and the Sodusu River in Taehongdan, Ryanggang province. Both relief workers confessed that they crossed into China out of curiosity, attracted by the bright lights of the country across the river.
They said they had no intention of defecting – they simply swam across to China to travel for three days and then return to North Korea. They added that they believed all they had to do was pay the brigade some cash for the days they did not work.
During their interrogation, the two escapees described their impressions of China:
“The China we saw from Sinuiju was strikingly different from what we had seen from Ryanggang province. In China, we witnessed people freely enjoying barbecued lamb skewers and beer late into the night. This scene of freedom, peace, and comfort was something we realized we might never experience again in our lives, even if we were reborn a hundred times over.”
The source said that the interrogation’s aftermath revealed a paradoxical approach by North Korean authorities. While initially encouraging honesty, they severely punished the escapees for their candid accounts. However, in an unusual move, the ministry ultimately downplayed the incident to protect the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade’s reputation.
The young men were expelled from the brigade and sent home with strict orders to remain silent about their experiences in China, rather than facing more severe political consequences typically associated with such escape attempts, the source said.
The Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
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