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Nine family members of long-term prisoners of war in North Korea were sent back to the North after a South Korean consulate in China failed to protect them. The Consulate in Shenyang has already been given an official warning over its offhand response when kidnapped fisherman Choi Uk-il asked for help there last month. The Monthly Chosun published Thursday reports that nine relatives of three POWs were arrested by Chinese police only a day after they checked into a guesthouse near the consulate.
They were the wives, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law and grandsons and daughter of long-term POWs. Guided to the guesthouse by two consular officials, they were all hauled out by police the following day after a Chinese witness reported them. Police then investigated how they escaped North Korea and transferred them to police in the border town of Dandong opposite Sinuiju, North Korea. They were all deported to the North in late October, the magazine says.
Most of them had escaped the North last July. Their South Korean families watched as they handed themselves over to the consulate. Two of the three POWs had died in North Korea while the third escaped, secretly returned to South Korea in early 2006 and now lives here. By law, all North Koreans are South Korean citizens.
In a letter to the consulate last July, the grandson of a late POW pleaded for help from the South Korean government. "We can no longer live in China. We live in fear every day and have nightmares every night. The only way for us to live is to go to South Korea, our grandfather¡¯s homeland,¡± the monthly quotes him as saying. Around Oct. 20 last year, South Korean officials met families of the POWs and told them it had become "difficult" for their North Korean families to come to Seoul. According to the families in South Korea, most of their relatives were sent to concentration camps after their forcible repatriation.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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