The crackdown on North Korean escapees in China has been intensified since June 20 when the seven-member family of Chang Kil Su arrived in Seoul after seeking asylum at the Beijing office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Never has the crackdown by the Chinese authorities been more severe than it is now," say officials of churches and human rights organizations helping those refugees in China.

An ethnic Korean resident in Yanbian, Kim Sung Il, 37 (alias,) who has been assisting North Korean escapees for several years, is distraught these days. He had guided North Korean refugees, collected in Yanbian, to Chinese cities like Tianjin and Shenyang, where he had arranged for their hiding. Of late thirty-odd North Korean refugees he had been looking after were rounded up by Chinese security police, according to him. "I felt a strong sense of betrayal learning that the arrests came at a tipoff by a fellow Korean-Chinese I've trusted, having been induced by a reward," confided Kim. The Chinese security police are said to have confiscated from his house a satellite antenna and a tape recorder. In an attempt to get the refugees out of a Chinese detention camp by bribing Chinese prison guards, Kim scrounged all the money he could, but to no avail. 5,000 yuan, equivalent to about W800,000, used to be sufficient to bribe prison guards, but these days, according to him, offering even 10,000 yuan cannot achieve this end.

Three hundred and seventy North Korean refugees, rounded up by Chinese security police, are alleged to be detained in Tuman and Dandong, both cities just across the Tumen and Yalu Rivers, Kim claimed, quoting Chinese security police officers.

A missionary group helping North Korean refugees in China too was distraught recently when Chinese authorities rounded up 100-odd refugees they had been looking after. Among them were a family of a former Korean resident in Japan who had migrated to North Korea and many women. An 18-year-old daughter, whose parents were rounded up, was rescued from the hands of a local human trafficking group, only to disappear again, said an official of the group.

The Chinese security police have reportedly put up a reward of between 3,000 yuan and 5,000 yuan on information leading to the arrest of a North Korean escapee, the funding of which is rumored to come from North Korea. Posing the biggest threat to North Korean refugees in China is said to be advance information on them by ethnic Koreans residing in northeastern China, induced by the reward money. A reward guaranteed upon the notification of a North Korean escapee to the Chinese authorities, whereas uncovered protection of one ensues a fine, cannot but be enticing to some Korean-Chinese. Cold treatment of North Korean escapees is said to be worsening particularly because there is no guarantee that such refugees, protected by them, will eventually be able to reach South Korea.

Few North Korean refugees, sent back to the North, now make renewed flights to China, a sign of tightened control in the North, according to groups helping them there. Despite the reinforced crackdown and controls and the swollen waters of the Tumen River caused by recent heavy rain, the stream of escapees from the North never ceases, and no decrease is seen in the number of help requests filed with human rights and religious organizations in China.

(Kang Chol Hwan, nkch@chosun.com )