IN WHAT looks like a new departure for the government of Kim Jong-il, border guards have reportedly shot dead five North Korean refugees after pursuing them across the frozen Yalu river, which forms a natural border with neighbouring China.
Thousands of North Koreans have fled the world’s last Stalinist state in a bid to escape poverty and hunger. South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that border guards pursued seven refugees across the river into China.
“Five of them died instantly under intensive gunfire by North Korean border guards who had run after them and the two others were wounded and taken to the North,” the paper said.
The reports indicated that the guards dragged the bodies and the injured back across the border with permission from Chinese authorities.
The seven had left Hyesan in Yanggang province and walked across the frozen Yalu, reaching China on December 14th, the paper quoted a high-level source in Changbai in the Chinese province of Jilin as saying.
This is the first time in years there have been reports of defectors being shot. In fact North Korean border guards have never shot defectors once they had reached the Chinese side. The paper suggested the guards could have been given new directives on dealing with would-be defectors.
Mr Kim’s heir, Kim Jong-un, who is being groomed to take over from his ailing father, has denounced refugees as traitors and has reportedly ordered border guards to shoot anyone trying to leave the country illegally.
One year ago the government in Pyongyang reportedly gave shoot-to-kill orders after disastrous reform of its currency caused widespread hardship among the already impoverished populace by wiping out savings.
Many North Korean defectors escape through China, finding sanctuary with ethnic Koreans in the border regions of China, and then make their way to South Korea. In some cases China has returned defectors, leaving them to an uncertain fate. In general the area is like many border regions – deeply porous and difficult to monitor. Moreover, there is considerable traffic, both trade and human, across the frontier.
China is North Korea’s sole ally. Food and fuel aid from China is said to be keeping the North Korean economy going. Beijing is keen for stability in North Korea as it does not want a flood of refugees across the frontier, but neither does it not want the US-backed South gaining a foothold on its borders.
Their relationship is occasionally strained. In June, China lodged a diplomatic protest after a North Korean border guard shot and killed three Chinese citizens and wounded a fourth on suspicion they were crossing the border for illegal trade.
In March last year, a prominent North Korean defector, Hwang Jang-yop, was found dead in Seoul and there was a suspicion he had been assassinated, although police later said he died of a heart attack.