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Twenty North Koreans entered the South Korean consulate in Beijing on Friday and asked for asylum in South Korea.
The twenty scaled a barbwire wall surrounding the diplomatic compound, which houses the South Korean consulate, at around 5:50 a.m. (local time) and eventually entered the consulate at around 6:50 a.m. after waiting for one hour outside the consulate building, asking for those inside to open the door.
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A group of 20 North Korean defectors scaled two fences to enter the compound of the South Korean Consulate in Beijing, China on Friday morning. They successfully entered the consulate about 40 minutes later. /YTN TV
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The group would have been arrested if Chinese police had come to the scene before the defectors had entered the building -- the area around the diplomatic compound is exempt from extraterritoriality.
A total of 20 people, 6 men and 14 women, entered the consulate. Among them, four are in their teens, two are brothers and one pair is mother and son. The consulate is investigating their identities and plans to negotiate with Chinese authorities for the group's release to South Korea.
In August, 15 North Korean defectors entered the consulate in a similar way. On Sept. 10, another four North Korean defectors attempted to do the same, but three were arrested by Chinese police. With this new group of 20 defectors, there are a total of 130 North Koreans in the South Korean consulate, waiting to be sent to the South.
(Cho Jung-sik, jscho@chosun.com )
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