15 North Korean defectors arrive in South Korea

SEOUL, March 10: Fifteen North Korean defectors, including two families, arrived here Friday after quitting their harsh life in an unident...

SEOUL, March 10: Fifteen North Korean defectors, including two families, arrived here Friday after quitting their harsh life in an unidentified third country, the foreign ministry said.

Their arrival brought to 41 the total number of North Koreans who have come to South Korea this year, a ministry official said. The 15 people included a five-member family of a 63-year-old welder, An Gap-Su and a four-member family of a 42-year-old worker, Shim Il-Bok. The six others were two workers, a driver, a 41-year-old woman, a young unemployed person and a 30-year-old low-ranking official.

The 15 had left North Korea between 1996 and 1999 and had been scraping a life in a "third country" before they sought asylum in the South, the ministry said. The "third country" in defection cases usually refers to China, which borders North Korea along the Yalu River. The defectors were put in protective custody for questioning to investigate their motives and details of their defection, the ministry said.

North Korea has been gradually imploding for a decade since the collapse of the old Soviet bloc. The country has suffered six years of a famine which is estimated by aid groups to have killed between 1.5 and 3.5 million of its 23 million people. Tens of thousands are thought to have fled to China. Last year 148 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea, many of them believed to have transited via China.