hankyoreh

South Korean soldiers patrol the inter-Korean border. (Yonhap News)

Government figures show that about half of South Koreans who have crossed the border into North Korea over the past 10 years have returned to the South. Those individuals have been prosecuted for violating the National Security Act and the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act. This is the first time that the exact number of South Korean defectors has been confirmed.

The Hankyoreh acquired government data about South Korean citizens who have defected to North Korea over the past 10 years on Oct. 5. According to the data, 55 South Koreans have crossed into North Korea between 2010 and September 2020. While 30 of those individuals remain in North Korea, 25 have either been repatriated to South Korea or have returned to South Korea of their own free will. Those 25 individuals have been tried on various charges, including violations of the National Security Act and the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act.

When South Koreans cross the border, North Korea typically hands them over to the security authorities to be questioned and assessed for potential usefulness. In the case of defectors who are found or arrested by the North Korean military or border guards, the first round of questioning is handled by the local office of the Ministry of State Security. The results of that questioning determine whether the defector will be used in regime propaganda or whether they will be expelled and repatriated. Depending on their identity, some defectors are given preferential treatment, such as being allowed to live in Pyongyang and join the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), while others are assigned to work on collective farms in the countryside.

According to data about North Korean defectors who later returned to the North that Democratic Party lawmaker Jeon Hae-cheol received from the Ministry of Unification (MOU) on Sept. 29, 29 (52.7%) of the 55 South Korean citizens who have gone to the North over the past 10 years have been North Korean defectors. Since MOU uses North Korean media reports to confirm that defectors have returned to the North, that number might be greater if unconfirmed cases were included. All of those individuals have returned to North Korea through China.

Six of the 29 North Korean defectors who returned to the North eventually made their way back to South Korea. They later said that they’d returned to North Korea because of the difficulty of getting established in the South, because they missed family members back in the North, or because they wanted to help family members defect to the South.

“In order to eliminate cases of North Korean defectors returning to the North, we need to improve the system so that we can identify defectors in crisis at an early point and quickly take action,” said Jeon Hae-cheol.

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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