Human Trafficking
A 26-year-old North Korean woman, Mun Yun-hee crossed the Duman (or Tumen) River into China in the dawn of Oct. 22 last year, which at that point was some 40 m wide, guided by a human trafficker. She was...
Loss of Identity
On Nov. 17, 2007, an eight-year-old boy called Choi Sung-ryong arrived at the China-Laos border from an 18-hour walk through the rainforest with four other North Korean defectors, all risking their lives...
Slave Labor
Kim Man-soo is a North Korean defector. But he did not cross the Duman (or Tumen) River to escape the communist country, as so many do: he wandered the frozen wastes of Siberia. .
Escape from Hell
A 19-year-old Young-wha crossed the Duman (or Tumen) River in 2006. Her mother, Park Soon-shim, who fled North Korea a year earlier, saved money from fixing clothes to let her out of North Korea...
Drug Dealing
Dandong is a Chinese border city situated at the mouth of the Apnok (or Yalu) River. When the night comes, Shinuiju, the North Korean city opposite Dandong, is shrouded in darkness while Dandong ...
Separated Families
Almost 2,000 North Korean defectors came to South Korea via third countries in 2007. At this very moment, more than 40,000 North Korean refugees are estimated to live in China, their identities hidden...
Epilogue: Drug and People Smuggling by the N.Korean Army
Any account of the flood of North Korean refugees must start with the 1990s famine. It was then that the hungry and malnourished started...
