The Defectors - Escapees From North Korea's Prison Camps

it's 9:00 p.m. in the South Korean capital Seoul at a subway station we've arranged a meeting this 25 year old is North Korean he's asked us not to reveal his face or his name but he wants to tell us about his past I'm really tired she got each other criminy Palma does what you got a bad news for you this is the story of the defectors men and women who've escaped North Korea the testimony you will hear in this program is shocking it's heartbreaking and it's happening right now stories of murder slavery torture imprisonment rape unparalleled in the modern world and recalled by those who survived it Wang Yi yo-yo driving through the neon of modern soul just 30 miles from the darkness of North Korea the 25 year old we've met can't quite believe he's here or even that he's alive need one gun you know he jiong a desert sand a jogger would put colors on the miracle is this new beginning after a childhood spent in a North Korean labor camp we arrived at the Seoul apartment block it's now his home hidaka do you go chew gum Ricky dairy animal today Pamela worked on Germany how many gelatin Sultan will help widget tab military she got each other criminy Palma does who together bad news for you go this is the place he's describing North Korea is one of the world's poorest countries a closed nation a people cut off communal farms it's all from a different age but away from here out of sight of the gulags the political prisons modern-day concentration camps satellite images show their scale but for a picture of what they're really like we can only rely on those who've been there her mother's in will do engage attention she don't have an immune engine antigen more battery room and economy you don't come guys in menu and there's no Papageno connected in the world one hammer toe anyways yeah these sketches are the recollections of other prisoners who've managed to escape the camps he's not seen them but just listen to how his descriptions match I'm German needing coaching got to go to guava jiwoo go cow - yo I'm Jana Jana Sangh she can no longer touch your amazon co get Volcom Tunde well you don't go papa punky Giga and toe toe Chengdu leukemia and SAP young Hampton in a juggling pie in the COG AJ how Russia Russia Myung Yi indigo Joe and calm cool and jang ki-joon enjoyed oil go tight okay i go kitty I'm keen hollandaise Jerry Musso Tom Boonen cousin I'm due to none dunninger pocket or toss under the balloon way listening to all this from the bedroom is his mother the two escaped the North separately remarkably they were reunited in Seoul she's never told her own story and for now she says she can't it's Sunday morning on the sixth floor of an unassuming building a community of Christians have gathered for their weekly service most of the congregation a South Korean the dotted among them are men women and children from the north there are about 25,000 North Koreans living in the south all of them are defectors they've managed to escape you only have to talk to someone from the north for a minute or two for a hint of their past life ang iyong arrived here in 2004 co-moh typically Tomoko hardly him Durazo credo coronado chromosome company and yes in the 1990s his eldest brother defected to Russia that was effectively a death sentence for the rest of the family they were all punished for the brothers crime home on in de totora vizago little tale ko hyun-jung Dokic a doctor at the Kaiser gentleman PO se dongs and Oh McCool Mitsuko Chetan okay one more Naaman was an hour he'll Novoa the South Korean capital is modern and it's sophisticated it feels a million miles for North Korea and yet here we're just a hundred miles from the North Korean capital but between the two countries is this the DMZ a border and a buffer a place where there are more landmines than anywhere else on earth it is impenetrable and so all those who do manage the escape 2000 or so a year must endure an extraordinary journey their goal is the South Korean capital Seoul a place where they're granted freedom with no chance of crossing this border though all of them head north to China there they cross the Tumen River which forms the country's northern border in winter it's easier the rivers frozen from there they must survive undetected as they travel through China if caught the Chinese send them straight home their objective then is Southeast Asia the South Korean embassy in Vietnam Laos or Thailand there they'll be granted their freedom a passport and a flight to solve cheers oooh Park made that journey in 2012 he's a former tank commander in the North Korean army three years ago he was here in the North Korean capital Pyongyang driving a tank in Kim Jong Un's parade we meet him at the War Museum in Seoul as we look at one of the ancient tanks just like those he was driving only a couple of years ago he tells me that it was only when he was brought to this museum that he realized all he knew all that he'd been taught in the north was a lie the Korean War in 1950 wasn't started by the south and the Americans it was the North who invaded the south and that strong army he thought he served in is nothing opposes an own ego token Diamond R and a Canadian ego soon a demotion insignia dan bosun singhara conversion the Sunday magazine city Sal model summer single tank Lola comes a dream which is Iraqis of the rule those are keys to a chilly day till uncle Timmy he seems almost lost in his new life he's cautious too and not yet comfortable about discussing the details of his escape why and how he did it it involves his family he'll talk about it later he says in private in the hills outside Seoul is a place called hanawon this secret facility off-limits to us is where rehabilitation for every defector begins all the North Koreans in the South have spent time here they are effectively reprogrammed history is rewritten corrected and they're taught from scratch even the things we take for granted how to drive how to buy a coffee how to fit in but the challenges even after the rehab at Hana want a huge as a North Korean flitting in anywhere is hard mr. an from the churches to show us how sport helps him we return to the home of the young man whose childhood was spent in a prison camp his mother has decided she wants to tell us her story and North Korea's ambassador to the UK grant Sky News a rare interview we Don have live account this is a TV show with a difference regular book on air minute bad it's not a place you'd expect to find North Korean defectors struggling with their new South Korean lives but that's precisely who these women are it's part chat show part talent contest South Korean TV personalities laugh with North Korean contestants my little girl Tony can't don't hold on what you're watching right I'm Madhumita here they impersonate newsreaders from the north it prompts a nervous smile there's a laugh when one young woman admits she can drive a tank an emotion as others discuss kidnappings in the north I know I'm Detroit up on him your father gone with her gonna do good but it is quickly clear the laughs hide an enduring struggle this is leash and she'll free now but still utterly broken behind the smiling she was once a North Korean soldier she bears the scars of torture she tried to escape nine times she and her two year old daughter finally made it over the border to China but there the misery continued they Gandhi be a cousin and a second dear too important indeed time did you into the motor home no more water smokers she and her baby was sold in China and two different people mrs. Li was forced into farm labor she's no idea where her daughter went it's hard to listen to an jaeyeong is the defector we met at church he's asked us to join him for a game of choku it's a curious impressive mix of football with volleyball we're in a downtrodden suburb of Seoul the game allows us a moment to understand one of the many difficulties for North Koreans in the south integration our South Korea who's winning there are effectively two games here on this pitch the players are from the north but down there on the other are the South Korean players two nations alongside each other but not yet together moon Jung Suk was at the church - I sense he's struggling total model B at all time didn t know he wasn't leave quite literally a guy linen he just had a little teriyaki burger at a motel near Applewood the 2,000 or so people who make the escape to Seoul every year retreated with remarkable generosity by the South Korean government because this peninsula was once one nation those from the north are automatically granted South Korean citizenship with that comes counseling housing and cash to get them going but there's a sense that this causes resentment friction with some from the south these men are treated as a lower-class still it's better than the north are you Joe no we didn't I didn't enter whoa I knew I by evening we're back in the city center and back with the young man who'd spent his childhood in a prison camp he wants us to return to his home his mother has made a decision she wants to talk the following morning we're heading back she's decided that for the first time she wants to reveal her life in a North Korean prison camp is his honey alley attendance Moton e ramana's Hemi Cudas an interrogation kool Moe Dean Coleman more gin up Mary Tomiko bikini don t report on connect a pan and a couch una cosa even young guns are important day Yoga Yoga taco man Charmander okay young man incognito Putin go Bonica cookie pero Gucci suit Erdogan incur company Drago again sketches by others who have escaped or a chilling match for her testimony Banta Sara me here Odin cambogia Inigo salami and American or ki kahani yoga cosa que que no quiero que come on Tom Kirk n de- gone bang huntin Bala Nagar eaten companion whose owner dr. Hannah my yoga and hasta maana caldera Natsuko co-op a awesome tamale kaise ho ho my pita widow she lived like this for two years she counted the days on the wall in blood and I said ok kappa GG Salonika tell Papa donkey jung dongha's hello Cory Pooja sorry tapas eco Cody Parvati Ruggiano Cody pearl conquer ET caetera Hachiko Kogi jkt more apt analogy with Tottenham they make a hole g'day mate horn goalie hootenanny get the water coming because you can water all this for being caught trying to escape her country gauri karnik ie bode terracotta akhirin Molitor comma a co2 tax on motor etc since unbowed Otto toran RA seemed somewhat Haram is haram erratically Huhn hak bong is North Korea's ambassador to the UK he represents the North Korean government and its policies and he agreed to a rare interview with us where those guys who made the wrong against the government you know needs to be punished but we don't have a labor camps actually we have with education camps right it came to education place it is a denial repeated again and again by North Korea in Western countries say that we will labor camps but that is not true the United Nations report released in February concluded beyond doubt that the camps exist systematic widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by North Korea it said and the gravity scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world unspeakable atrocities but we've heard from witnesses who are willing to speak and to recall their health their words provide a unique record it's time for lunch with jesu Park the tank commander from the north cotton war captain dare the museum he didn't discuss how or why he escaped now at this quiet Korean restaurant he will Colonel Yuri and Alenka Colonel a community VSO nomological crew also getting don't give ESO camel toe Nagi decimeter go clean it when the collodion Hangu human and even Johanna even you are father God soon-jong is a token Union and to Tijuca home but here's the tragedy his wife and his children are still in the North his calculation was that they'd be safer if he left it's a gamble Kuchar Kazuki oh-ho-ho more children are Tabaco gonna I'm gonna go cheering something isn't come she man honey no I wish we spent a few days inside North Korea last year was a strange trip we were only allowed to see what our minders showed us I've never seen so many people so devoted to one man the devotion is quite extraordinary hard to understand hard to explain mr. Park says it's simple career Chong er was harness wanna go nigga cuckoo Jason de Muro free Adele tenant guru Freddy go get a delta nu H the onion 22 countries including today only single universe to Cairo platinum taka-kun mano Nera tag Amman Cairo pickmonz Oakland a hotel casa cairo Kanaka non-atomic a mondo calendar Dona Tomas reso II German Idol Kazi a Ducati task 2 cos e sinto quente Tokaji Pawtuxet air pocket it is an irony that those who remain inside North Korea carry broad smiles and yet so many of those who've escaped struggled to smile at all I think I did for a little more time good Papa mrs. John is unlikely ever to heal how good damn is PO get uncle Paul up the tears are for her lost husband if he's not dead he's certainly in a prison camp and that's the thing the hell everyone has described here isn't history it's happening right now in camps just across the border in North Korea you

Channel: Sky News

Views: 995,717

Rating: 4.8437538 out of 5

Keywords: Sky News, skynews, news, Mark Stone, Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, North Korea, South Korea, Asia, Pyongyang, Seoul, War crime, dictator, repression, free speech, Defector, Communism, Communist

Id: WbCo46dtki8

Length: 22min 50sec (1370 seconds)

Published: Mon May 05 2014