Earlier this year, around May 6, 2023, one of the only defections from North Korea took place.  Mr.Kim fled by sea with his entire family through minefields and horrible weather conditions. He asked journalists to not use his full name so that he could keep his family safe. They were the first people to defect from North Korea this year and one of the only ones, and there is a reason for this. Defections from North Korea used to be fairly common but with the Coronavirus going around, the country panicked and locked the borders completely.

The living conditions of North Korea were horrible and people would be starved, killed, and left to die on the streets if they made one mistake. The border closures made the conditions even more severe with entire villages being closed if one case was reported. When a village would close, food had to be delivered by truck and people would often die of starvation before it arrived. Mr. Kim avoided this by selling stuff on the black market that was smuggled in from China. He became rich off the back of it and he could afford to eat stew with any meat he wanted(A rare commodity in North Korea that only the upper class got to do).

They escaped by boat across the Yellow Sea and made it to South Korea.  Defecting to South Korea is the most popular, and probably the best place to defect to since they provide all North Koreans with citizenship upon entry into the country, but it is also the hardest route.  The DMZ(The border between North and South Korea) is the most heavily guarded border in the entire world and if the soldiers see anyone trying to defect, they shoot them on sight.

The night of his escape was very stormy and the seas were rough, this was all part of Mr. Kim’s plan. He knew that on stormy nights, the surveillance boats retreated. He carefully went to his getaway boat, trying not to step on any landmines or alert any guards. One mistake, and they would be executed. They were armed with swords, poison, and homemade pepper spray to protect themselves from coast guards.

They applied to fish to fund a local military base, and on May 6th, they set sail. They traveled outside the boundary zone by pretending to be a piece of trash, and when they were outside the radar zone, they sped down with the current. After a couple of minutes, they crossed the maritime boundary and they could no longer be captured. After 2 hours at sea, they were rescued by the South Korean Navy.

After arriving in South Korea, they were debriefed to make sure they weren’t spies, and then they were sent to a resettlement center. With the help of the South Korean government, they got a house and a car, and they now live happily without being oppressed by their government.