Editor's Note: The ghastly saga of the seven-member North Korean family of Jang Kil Suh came to a successful end on Saturday when they flew to Seoul via Manila through the good offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Beijing. The three-year drama, involving underground life in China and the deportation of some of the family members back to North Korea, revealed once more how torturous it is for North Korean escapees to resettle in the South. The desperate plight experienced by some the "lucky ones" from among hundreds and thousands of North Korean escapees who have managed to flee to Seoul is introduced below.

◆ Kim In Chol (pseudonym, 48)

Accompanied by his wife, son and daughter, Kim crossed the Yalu in July 1997. A while later the family was arrested by Chinese security agents while crossing the Heilong Jiang River on their way to Russia. He and his family escaped while being deported to North Korea along with five other North Korean male and three female escapees. On his arrest, Chinese security authorities put up a 10,000-yuen reward. In a month he and his wife were rearrested. His son, being a minor, was safe. Sensing his worst possible fate if he were sent back to home, he jumped off from the second floor of the detention house. His wife was deported back to the North, while his daughter was sold to the Chinese living in the hinterland by a Chinese human trafficker.

Getting travel expenses from churches, Kim called on South Korean diplomatic missions in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, all of which turned him away. He traveled to the south along with another escapee from the North, whom he met at the South Korean Consulate General in Shanghai. It took them three months to reach Thailand through Miyanma and Laos, during which they were detained several times but escaped. The two survived on fruits in mountains, they often had to starve.

In Thailand they were detained in a police station. His peer, Pak Sung Hak, died of stomach complications caused by excessive eating after long starvation. Of the four family members, only he and his son succeeded reaching South Korea.

◆ Kim Un Chol, (31)

Kim escaped from the North in March 1997 by crossing the Yalu River by a small boat. Assisted by an ethnic Korean in China, he worked at a Korean firm. When the firm went belly up in the whirlpool of the 1997 financial crisis, Kim found a job at a Chinese restaurant. But the restaurant landlord didn't pay him wages using the excuse that he would obtain a passport for him. When his back wages amounted to 3,000 yuen, the restaurant closed its door. He chased the landlord to the Russian border, but to no avail.

With help coming from his Chinese friends and Koreans he met on the way, Kim arrived in Hainan Island, from which he set out to travel to Miyanma by foot, crossing a rugged mountain after another, begging villagers for food and feeding himself on fruits. Detained by local police, he pretended to be deaf, which, in turn, invited beatings. Kim succeeded in making desperate escapes on several occasions. He almost drown while swimming across several rivers. Kim contemplated killing himself several times a day. Upon reaching Miyanma, he found a restaurant run by a Korean resident, who contacted the Korean Embassy there, which arranged for his final leg of his journey to Seoul.

◆ Shin Mi Jong (pseudonym, 23)

Her three-member family consisting of her parents and herself, escaped to China from the North, determined to live in China. Life devoid of nationality, however, proved to be too hard to sustain. Ethnic Koreans in China openly despise North Koreans, and even relatives were cool toward them, she reminisced.

They went to the edge of being arrested by either North Korean espionage or Chinese security agents several times. Extreme fear and uncertainties prompted them to change their mind in favor of seeking asylum in South Korea. Until 1999, the South Korean media often published essays written by North Korean escapees in China. Her mother wrote an article to a South Korean monthly. To supply her with paper to write the lengthy story, the daughter had to earn money by working at a karaoke bar in Yanji. They had to earn money to buy needed stamps too. Good fortune befell on them earlier than expected through a helping hand motivated by her mother's article.

(Kang Chol-hwan and Kim Mi-young)