A group of 25 North Koreans, including six families and two orphaned girls, stormed into the Spanish embassy in Beijing yesterday threatening to kill themselves unless they got asylum and passage to South Korea, writes Miriam Donohue
Dozens of Chinese paramilitary police sealed off the embassy in central Beijing after the group burst through the gates. Journalists and photographers were barred from approaching. The 25, who had escaped North Korea before only to be forcibly repatriated, threatened suicide if they are sent back. The case highlights China's refusal to recognise as refugees tens of thousands of North Koreans hiding out on its northeastern borders.
Delicate negotiations were underway last night between Chinese and Spanish officials to resolve the impasse.
A statement from the group signed by the Toyko-based Life Funds for North Korean Refugees said some have poison and will use it if the Chinese authorities try to send them back.
It claimed many of the 25 were subjected to months of harrowing detention after their earlier repatriation.
"We are now at the point of such desperation and live in such fear of persecution within North Korea that we have come to the decision to risk our lives for freedom rather than passively await our doom," a statement from the group said.
A German doctor, Dr Norbert Vollerstein (44), who helped them seek refuge in the embassy yesterday explained why he wants to see the regime in Pyongyang toppled.
"North Korea is hell on earth," he said. "It's an upgraded version of the German concentration camp system." Dr Vollerstein lived in North Korea for 18 months until December 2000, working for the German Emergency Doctors charity and occasionally acting as a private physician for the political elite. But the conditions he saw among the great majority of North Koreans increasingly horrified him, and his denunciations of mass starvation and human rights abuses eventually led to his expulsion.
Now Dr Vollerstein says he is intent on letting the world know what he calls the truth about the country.He helped organise yesterday's storming of the embassy. The group of North Koreans was supported by a network of human rights volunteers from Germany, the US, France and South Korea, he said. Dr Vollerstein promised more would follow.
Dr Vollerstein showed photos of emaciated children in prison-style striped pyjamas, which he said evoked memories of an earlier, darker part of German history.
"When you watch the faces of these children, they don't just look like children inmates in German concentration camps, they also behave the same way," he said. "They're unable to cry, unable to laugh, and simply have no emotions left."
No one feels safe in North Korea and everyone walks in constant fear of sudden arrest, torture and death, he said. To escape the horrors of imprisonment, many people, especially soldiers, carry small blocks of concentrated opium to commit suicide in case of arrest. South Korea yesterday appealed to China and Spain to resolve the incident "in accordance with humanitarian concerns". - (additional reporting AFP)