"We have confirmed that the detained North Koreans ended their hunger strike at 5 p.m. Thursday and resumed taking meals offered by the immigration detention center," a senior official at the South Korean Embassy in Thailand said. The hunger strike reportedly ended when the detainees accepted assurances by the Thai immigration authorities that none of them would be deported to North Korea and they would soon leave for South Korea. The first group of 20-plus could fly to Seoul on Friday at the earliest.

The immigration detention center in Bangkok where over 420 North Korean defectors are detained. The Thai authorities banned outsiders except diplomats from meeting the detainees on Wednesday morning.

The hunger strike was started by some 20 of the detainees, with most joining in. Exhausted from the 40-degree heat and hunger, six of them received medical treatment, and two women in their 50s were hooked up to intravenous drips. The refugees cite overcrowding at the facility, where 324 women were packed into a room with a capacity for 120. "We are so jam-packed here that it feels like a lot more than 40 degrees," Bak Sun-yi (not her real name) told the Chosun Ilbo on the phone. "Sleeping all on top of each other for three months, many of us have heat rash."

Thai Immigration Bureau chief Lt. Gen. Boonruang Polpanich promised to improve facilities at the detention center but added they already meet “general Thai standards.” The North Koreans complained about extremely poor hygienic conditions, saying two of the four toilets were broken for two months and drains did not work.

It remains to be seen what the international attention will mean for the Thai government's policy on North Korean defectors. With escape routes to South Korea through China blocked for more than two years, Thailand has emerged as the biggest window to the South for North Korean refugees. The numbers have jumped from 30-plus a month in the past to over 1,00 per month since the latter half of last year. Due to the considerable burden, the Thai authorities seem to have decided to put the brakes on the stream of refugees to South Korea.

The delay in deporting the hunger strikers was one result of that policy. "Delays in departures for Seoul since the recent reshuffle of the Thai Immigration Bureau commissioner gave rise to concerns among the refugees that their journeys to South Korea might be frustrated and the waiting prolonged," a source familiar with defector issues said. But a senior South Korean diplomat at the scene notes that Thailand has more than 150,000 illegal immigrants accommodated in border refugee camps. "The Thai government traditionally places importance on human rights and is friendly in dealing with refugee issues. It will neither repatriate the North Korean defectors nor send them to third countries like China."

(englishnews@chosun.com )