About 230 of the 460 North Korean defectors who are scheduled to come to Korea from a Southeast Asian nation in which they were staying arrived at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday morning aboard an Asiana Airlines flight. The refugees boarded a government-chartered flight from the country in which they were staying at 4:00 a.m. and arrived safely in Korea at around 9:06 a.m.
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About 200 North Korean defectors arrived at a military airport in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, via a third Asian country on Tuesday morning. This marks the largest single defection ever by North Koreans to the South.
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After the defectors arrived at the airport, they were taken aboard buses to the Gyeonggi Province retreat of a certain financial body; the buses were waiting on orders from relevant authorities like the National Intelligence Service and police. Previously, defectors had come alone or in pairs -- or at most in the 10s -- but this is the first time in which such a large number -- 460 in two batches -- has entered the country all at once.
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North Korean defectors look through the bus windows with curious faces, after arriving at a military airport in Seongnam on Tuesday morning./Yonhap
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When the defectors arrived, the front door of Seoul Airport was thoroughly closed off to outsiders, while about 100 reporters slugged it out for position around the five entrances of the airport.
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A young North Korean defector waves from inside of a bus./Yonhap
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It is known that of the 460 defectors, including this first batch, 60 percent are woman and children, and most have spent over six months in the particular Southeast Asian country since entering illegally from China.
They will spend about a month being interrogated, and in mid-August they are scheduled to go to Hanawon -- the defector acclimation facility in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province -- where they will spend about eight weeks learning about life in South Korea.
Government authorities, mindful of possible diplomatic problems with the Southeast Asian nation from which the defectors were brought from, maintained strict security with the arrival of this first batch of defectors, and it plans neither an official announcement nor a press conference for the time being.
Once the defectors finish with their classes, they will receive settlement assistance funds -- one person gets W35.90 million, a family of two W45.55 million, a family of three W55.11 million, a family of four W64.66 million, and so on.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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