“It was really hard, and I was so scared I thought I was going to die from fear.” “We were told we were supposed to go over two mountains, but I think it was three,” said a young mother who had left her 4-year-old daughter behind in China while she made the escape. The woman on the left had been sold to a Chinese man, a common fate for young North Korean women looking to make money for their families Photo by Paula Bronstein for The Washington Postįor all these reasons and many more, North Koreans cross the river into China. Two 23-year-old school friends from the border city of Hyesan, North Korea, look out at the Mekong River bordering Laos. She thought she was going to work in a restaurant but instead was sold to a Chinese man for $12,000. Her friend, a hairdresser, had gone to China several months before. “I knew I was going to be sold, but I was prepared to go,” said one, looking up from her smartphone. They were recovering from the last leg of their terrifying journey out of North Korea, which started with a dead-of-night escape across the water into China and culminated in a boat ride across a swollen Mekong, which washed them way downstream from where they were supposed to be dropped.Īfter they had spent hours in the rain, not knowing where they were, the activist who had helped them escape finally found them.įor the 50-year-old woman from the North Korean port of Nampo, it was the fear of being repatriated to North Korea again – she’d just spent 2 1/2 years in a re-education camp – that made her carry on after she made it back to China.įor the 23-year-old school friends from the border city of Hyesan, being sold to Chinese men – knowingly or unknowingly – was the way to make money for their families. Those who escape tend to take a long roundabout way to South Korea Photo by Washington Post
The North Koreans asked to withhold their names and other identifying information to avoid putting their family members still in North Korea at risk of retribution from the Kim regime. The brother and sister were two of the 11 North Koreans who told their story to The Washington Post of their escape after arriving here, on the Thai side of the Mekong River, before turning themselves in to the police. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.