Foreign Ministry to Set Up Special Team for N.Korean Refugees

The government wants to create a Foreign Ministry team solely dedicated to looking after the interests of North Koreans who have fled their country but not yet reached South Korea.

A government source said the ministry is currently in discussion about the plan with the Ministry of Security and Public Administration.

The Foreign Ministry has been criticized for not doing enough to help North Korean defectors who typically make their arduous way across China to Laos and Thailand.

Currently, a regional division of the ministry works with the Korean embassy to any country where North Korean refugees are detained to help them, and in some special cases a one-off taskforce has been formed.

The drawbacks of the current approach are that it is passive and only lumbers into gear after a problem occurs. Since Yun Byung-se became foreign minister, the ministry has revised guidelines for protecting North Korean escapees and worked on establishing a team dedicated to the issue, spurred by the high-profile repatriation of nine North Korean teenagers from Laos.