Pyongyang carries out the death sentence of two women repatriated from Beijing

Identified as Ri and Kang, 39 and 43, they were helping other women escape to South Korea. Victims of trafficking to China, once sent back to North Korea they were killed after a public trial, confirmed by several sources.

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - In Chongjin, a port city in northeast North Korea, death sentences were carried out on two North Korean women aged 39 and 43, accused of helping other women escape to South Korea after being repatriated from China. These are the first known executions since Beijing resumed the forced repatriation of North Koreans in October 2023, Radio Free Asia explains.

The two women, identified by the surnames Ri and Kang, had been accused of sending groups of fugitives to South Korea, considered an ‘enemy country’. According to Jang Se-yul, head of the Seoul-based organisation Gyeore'e Unification Solidarity, Ri and Kang were initially sold to an adult entertainment business in China. ‘When other North Korean women who worked there said they wanted to go to South Korea, they organised their escape,’ Jang added.

Among them was the younger sister of one of the two women sentenced to death, who said she managed to escape to South Korea with the help of her sister. The latter was caught by a Chinese middleman while she herself was trying to escape to the South. She was helping North Korean women escape by running a business with her Chinese husband in Longjing, Jilin province in China. ‘She cried a lot,’ Jang commented, referring to her younger sister. ‘It seems her sister saved many runaways and sent them to South Korea.’

On 31 August, nine other women were sentenced to life imprisonment on the same charges. They were all part of a group of about 500 North Korean citizens repatriated from China, a practice that several refugee rights organisations have called for to be stopped, explaining that those sent back to North Korea often face severe punishments, including imprisonment in labour camps or, as in this case, execution. Beijing responds that it has an obligation to do so under bilateral agreements with Pyongyang.

The death sentences were confirmed by several sources, including a resident of the Chinese border town Hoeryong who was visiting Chongjin, 70 kilometres away. The man told RFA that the public trial began at 11 a.m., lasted about an hour and ended with the decision of the Social Security Bureau of North Hamgyong Province to proceed with the execution immediately.

Suzanne Scholte, president of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, a US-based organisation, also reported that the executions were discussed at a recent meeting of the association. And a North Korean defector living in South Korea also claimed to have received the news from family in the North. Jang Se-yul himself said he found out about the death sentences through ‘Freedom Chosun’, an online media run by North Korean refugees, who reconstructed the details of the incident.

The incident has caused concern among North Korean refugees and human rights activists, who fear that other women repatriated from China may face the same treatment. It is estimated that most North Koreans who have fled to China are women, often victims of sexual exploitation or forced into forced marriages with Chinese men. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, over 34,000 people, 72% of them women, have managed to escape to South Korea.