World

North Korea defector tells of escape and reveals what life is really like in secretive state

Published

2 years ago

April 7, 2023

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For David, the streets of Seoul are a much longed for safe haven.

To the casual observer, there is nothing out of the ordinary about him.

He is a slight man, softly spoken, dressed in baggy jeans and wide glasses that are fashionable in South Korea.

But his story and what he has been through to get here are utterly remarkable.

He is a North Korean defector, one of the very few to have escaped the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea) within the last few years.

“My mother bribed the soldier beforehand,” he tells me as he gestures on a map to where he crossed the border north into China.

“The river was frozen solid. I remember walking maybe 15 minutes to 20 minutes across the ice.

“I remember shivering after crossing the river and climbing over the fence that the Chinese guards had set up.”

For the safety of his relatives that remain in North Korea, we can’t tell you exactly when or exactly how he left. Any specific identifying detail could result in harsh punishments for his loved ones.

But his stories from inside are astonishing and offer a rare glimpse into what life has been like there since the pandemic struck.

Father disappeared without a trace

His childhood, it seems, was a relatively normal one in DPRK terms – helping from a young age to tend the fields and attending school when he could.

But everything changed shortly after his father suddenly disappeared without a trace.

“It wasn’t until about a year later when he got in touch with us that I realised he had fled to the south,” he explains.

“He contacted my mother via telephone. What we didn’t realise was that the North Korean state political security department had been tapping our landline. As a result, our mother was sent away to the labour camp.”

Initially, he was allowed to visit his mother every three months in detention, and he describes what he saw there as shocking.

“The amount of food provided in these detention centres is pitifully little,” he says.

“Prisoners receive around 20 to 30 kernels of corn each meal, which is obviously not enough for a person to survive on, so I packed a lunch when I went to visit her.

“My mother’s body had shrunk to half her original size in the three months she had been in detention. My eyes filled with tears the moment I saw her; she was so dishevelled and gaunt that I didn’t recognise her initially.

“They also beat the women in prison. Mother’s eyes were swollen to bits and there were bruises everywhere. I wept when I saw her wounds.”

Mother tortured

David was just a child at this time but he was left to fend for himself and his siblings. He says he left school and tried to make ends meet, working in the fields and logging in the winter, but also stole food to survive.

He took what little he could to his mother.

“My mother said that if the inmates’ families didn’t visit them in prison, they would starve to death from malnutrition,” he explains.

“She said tens of people died every day from malnutrition. She even said that people would die in the middle of meals.

“To dispose of the corpses, she said they folded them at the waist and put them in sacks.

“Afterwards, the corpses were buried near the fences of the prison. Also, because the graves weren’t very deep, the stench of the corpses would come up from the ground in the spring when it became warmer.”

His mother described to him the torture she faced, being made to sit for up to 17 hours and beaten if they moved as much as a finger.

She also described how inmates whose families did not have the means to bring extra food or bribe the guards would have a life expectancy of just three to four years.

David’s stories matter because recent testimony from inside North Korea is very rare indeed.

The pandemic has made this already secretive state all but impenetrable.

Policy to shoot anyone trying to cross border

In the 2010s, around 1,000 people a year successfully defected from North Korea – the vast majority crossing the northern border with China before seeking asylum in a third country.

But a combination of the strict closed-border policy implemented by both China and the DPRK, plus a new policy to shoot anyone trying to cross, means that in 2022 that number had plummeted to just 67.

It means that not much is known about how the country fared amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is mounting evidence that it further strangled an already dysfunctional economy, bringing fresh waves of shortage and suffering.

“The borders were sealed off out of fear that the pandemic would come from outside North Korea. No one was allowed to go near the border,” says David.

“All the trade routes were effectively closed down. We depended heavily on smuggled goods from China in order to survive.

“I’ve heard from my relative that more people are starving, and prices are rising. They say it has become even more difficult to live.”

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Indeed, many think it’s likely people have died due to a lack of food in recent years.

“I’d say [it’s a] chronic economic crisis, not acute. It’s just an ongoing, bad situation economically,” says Chad O’Carroll, the founder of NK News.

What is the situation in North Korea now?

He and his team try to analyse what is going on in North Korea. Since the pandemic, their sources have become fewer and more nervous, but there is a lot of evidence all is not well.

“I definitely think some people would be in serious health problems due to the food shortages,” Mr O’Carroll says. He explains that there is evidence that the crisis is even biting the elites who live in the major cities.

“In Pyongyang and other major urban areas there has not been such significant shortages, but the diversification and nutritional value of the available food has significantly decreased,” he says.

“So if you have a chronic health problem, if you’re old, that could probably really push health conditions in a negative way.

“There’s been very large scale mobilisations of people from all walks of life to get into the farms to get their hands dirty and help.

“We’ve got some sources that say middle, even senior elites in some cases, are having to do their part and helping the nation tackle this food shortage situation.”

It is relatively unlikely that this latest crisis will cause major instability to the ruling Kim regime.

The propaganda machine has been in overdrive blaming the global pandemic and showing pictures of wide-scale deaths and hospitals in crisis elsewhere.

Indeed, the North Korean people are also no strangers to hardship.

Most agree the increased secrecy has been of real value to the DPRK’s security services and will thus likely remain.

But for a nuclear-armed power so increasingly assertive internationally, the reality of life inside is still largely shrouded in mystery.

World

Gaza food situation ‘worst it’s ever been’, charity says – as tank attack reportedly kills 12 at camp

Published

16 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Gaza food situation 'worst it's ever been', charity says - as tank attack reportedly kills 12 at camp

An aid worker in Gaza has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is “absolutely desperate” and “the worst it’s ever been”.

Her comments to chief presenter Mark Austin come amid fresh outcry over aid restrictions, with the UK joining 24 other countries to urge an immediate end to the war.

It also comes as at least 12 more Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when tanks shelled a tent encampment in western Gaza City, according to health authorities.

Middle East latest: Key points from UK statement on Gaza

Medics, speaking early on Tuesday, said two shells were fired at tents housing displaced people from tanks positioned north of the Shati camp.

Israel hasn’t yet commented on the reports.

Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, spoke to Sky News from Deir al Balah, a city where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement.

She said: “One of my colleagues said to me yesterday, ‘We are all walking together towards death’. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza.

“There is no food for their children, it’s absolutely desperate here.”

“The markets are empty,” she said. “People may even have cash in their pockets yet they cannot buy bread [or] vegetables.

“My team have said to me, ‘There’s nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day.”

Israel launched a ground assault on southern and eastern Deir al Balah for the first time on Monday after having issued an evacuation order.

Local medics said at least three people were killed when houses and mosques were hit by tank shelling.

Sources told Reuters news agency that Israel believes some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October 2023 could be in the area.

Ms Cummings’s remarks came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire.

The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation (GHF).

Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed while trying to get food in recent weeks, both from GHF and UN convoys.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the joint statement said.

The 25 countries also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks.

Lammy promises £40m for Gaza

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

He told MPs: “We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area.

“Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism.”

Addressing the foreign secretaries’ joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza – told Sky News: “While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed.

“In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can’t get worse, it does.”

“Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response,” she said.

“And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we’re trying to serve.

“An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve.”

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

In recent weeks hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed while waiting for food and aid.

The Israeli military has blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.

World

Trade war: Is August escalation on – or will Trump chicken out?

Published

16 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Trade war: Is August escalation on - or will Trump chicken out?

Donald Trump is clearly seething over the term ‘TACO’ (Trump always chickens out) – a phrase that has characterised financial market trading over the past few months.

It suggests that for all the president’s bluster and threats during his on-off trade war to date, he rarely follows through.

When asked by a reporter about TACO in late May, as his “liberation day” escalation remained on pause, he declared it a “nasty” question and said he wanted negotiations.

Money latest: ‘Biggest July house price drop in 20 years’

Mr Trump wants a deal but to effectively bully America’s trading partners into agreeing better terms.

It’s a playbook that has defined his time in the White House and, as things stand, more than 20 nations and territories, including Japan and South Korea, face heightened tariffs of up to 40% on their exports to the US from 1 August.

Financial markets don’t really believe it. Stock markets, for example, are still hovering near or at record levels in both the US and in Europe. The FTSE 100 closed above 9,000 points for the first time on Monday evening. TACO is ingrained in those values.

But are markets in for a shock, especially when it comes to the fight with America’s single largest trading partner, the European Union? It was created, Mr Trump has previously claimed, to “screw” the United States.

It’s fair to say there was great optimism in the EU earlier this month that a deal, similar to that agreed between the US and UK, was looming to avert the worst of a threatened 30% baseline tariff from 1 August.

But the mood music in Brussels changed at the back end of last week and now EU diplomats are even briefing that a broader range of retaliation measures is being considered beyond additional tariffs on US goods.

The seriousness of this fight should not be underestimated.

EU figures show trade in goods and services between the bloc and the US account for almost a third of all global trade, at a value in 2024 alone of €1.68trn (£1.45trn).

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has warned that a 30% tariff would “practically prohibit” the bloc’s transatlantic trade, according to remarks via diplomats reported by the Reuters news agency.

We’re told that, even if time runs out, a truce could theoretically be agreed soon after 1 August.

Much will depend on the EU’s response.

Does it go down the route taken by the UK and not retaliate, pending the conclusion of talks?

There is growing pressure on Brussels to call Mr Trump’s bluff.

The EU has a package of tariffs on €21bn of US goods ready to go from 6 August. An additional package is yet to be finalised.

France is demanding US services are hit too, with even Germany now saying such an escalation should be considered.

The so-called “anti-coercion” instrument, as it’s known, would also potentially allow the bloc to limit US companies’ access to financial service markets in the EU.

So what happens after 1 August could be even more explosive.

But there is every reason to believe that a tit-for-tat escalation is unlikely, at least for long.

The very reason Donald Trump rowed back on his “liberation day” tariffs in April, allowing 90 days for talks, was likely the dire financial market reaction that followed news of the widespread duties.

You have a president demanding interest rate cuts (at a time when inflation is on the rise due to the impact of tariffs) in a bid to boost flagging economic growth.

Mr Trump says his trade war is all about boosting US manufacturing jobs but, at the end of the day, no powerbase of voters is going to accept a threat to the value of their investments for long.

No big US company will stand by and see its sales suffer.

TACO? It’s a solid bet.

World

Plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh – at least 19 people dead

Published

16 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh - at least 19 people dead

At least 19 people have died after a Bangladesh air force plane crashed into a college campus, the military said.

The aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College in Uttara, in the northern area of the capital Dhaka, where students were taking tests or attending regular classes.

The pilot was one of the people killed, and, according to the military, 164 were injured in the incident.

The Bangladesh military’s public relations department added that the aircraft was an F-7 BGI, and had taken off at 1.06pm local time before crashing shortly after.

Video shows fire and smoke rising from the crash site, with hundreds looking on.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo said that most of the injured were students with burn injuries.

Citing the duty officer at the fire service control room, Prothom Alo also reported that the plane had crashed on the roof of the college canteen.

Rafiqa Taha, a 16-year-old student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told the Associated Press that the school has around 2,000 students.

“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” she added. “My God! It’s my school.”