|
Having escaped from China to Thailand, eight-year-old Sung-ryong has been kept in a Bangkok prison for four months, as he cannot prove he is the offspring of a Korean defector. Sung-ryong's mother is a North Korean refugee and his father is a "Chaoxianzu" or ethnic Korean in China. His mother was sent back to North Korea where she would surely be executed and his father has been working in South Korea.
Early in the morning of Mar. 7, 2008, the father telephoned his son. Another prisoner with a mobile phone helped him receive the call. "All the others are all gone. Dad, can't you come here?" Sung-ryong enquired. "Hang in there just a little longer, can't you?" his father responded. "Be sure to bring some toys, Dad."
 |
|
Sung-ryong is locked in an immigration detention center in Bangkok, where it is so hot that he has taken all his clothes off (left). Speaking to him by phone from Korea is an emotional moment for his father (right).
|
 |
|
Park Oh-bin, a missionary, visited Sung-ryong on Mar. 5, 2008 and recalled, "It was tough to leave him behind bars."
The father mentioned that "recently, I received an anonymous call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The caller told me to bring my son, as he is Chinese. He also said he would discuss the matter with the Chinese Embassy to Korea, although he could not guarantee 100 percent security."
The incoming number belongs to a department of North Korean Policy within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A government officer of the Ministry of National Unification asked reporters, "If the father is Chinese, isn't his son entitled to have a Chinese ID number?" and added, "although it is not our concern, I feel deeply regretful about the case."
Another defector, Park Jin-mi, recalled, "I met the child's mother in July 2004 in a concentration camp in Chungjin, North Hangyong Province. She asked me to tell her child that she missed him very much when I was escaping the camp."
|
