Another large group of North Korean defectors have arrived in Seoul:
About 220 North Koreans have been flown to South Korea from an unnamed third country for the second day running. The defectors arrived at Incheon International airport on a plane charted by the South Korean government.
More than 200 people flew to Seoul on Tuesday – in what was the largest single batch of defectors from the hunger-stricken Communist North.
They all apparently escaped through China to what has been officially called “a South East Asian country”.
Seoul reportedly stepped in when the country, thought to be Vietnam, threatened to send them back to China.
Meanwhile the BBC gets to talk to North Korean asylum seekers in Beijing:
Their names have been changed as they fear reprisals against family members still living in North Korea.
They looked thin and malnourished, but they were marshalling their strength as they prepared to try to seek asylum – the culmination of a long journey through China.
Ms Na, a pretty young woman with a shy smile, left North Korea two years ago when the outside world believed the worst of the food shortages were over.
“I left because there was no food, but also because I wanted freedom. I wanted to be able to live how I wanted to live,” she said.
“It was very difficult in North Korea. I saw people dying on the streets, people starving, people whose faces were wasted away from the lack of food. I didn’t want that any more.”
Despite a constant barrage of propaganda telling North Koreans their country is doing fine, many think otherwise.
The North Koreans told me most people in the Hermit Kingdom now disliked their leader, Kim Jong-il, and blamed him for the lack of food.
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