North Korea defector tells of escape and reveals what life is really like in secretive state
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.
The pandemic has made North Korea all but impenetrable
“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.
A military parade in Pyongyang in February
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.
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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.
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to a commission established by the United Nations.
The report claims “it is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza” and says Israel’s actions meet the criteria set down for defining a genocide.
It is the first time that such an explosive allegation has been made publicly by a UN body, and is likely to be greeted with fury by the Israeli government.
Follow live updates: ‘Gaza is burning’ after overnight strikes
Israel‘s Foreign Ministry said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the commission to be abolished.
“Three individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly antisemitic positions – and whose horrific statements about Jews have been condemned worldwide – released today another fake ‘report’ about Gaza,” it said in a statement.
“The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others. These fabrications have already been thoroughly debunked.”
The accusation of genocide is made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion. Pic: Reuters
The commission, which has been studying the conduct of Israel since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, has concluded that Israel has committed four of the five acts laid out in the Genocide Convention.
It alleges Israel has been killing Palestinians or forcing them to live in inhumane conditions that led to death; causing serious bodily or mental harm, including through torture, displacement and sexual crime; deliberately imposing inhumane conditions, and fourthly, imposing measures intending to prevent births.
This final claim is linked to an attack on the Al-Basma IVF clinic, which the commission claims destroyed around 4,000 embryos and a further 1,000 sperm samples.
The report claims Israel has “flagrantly” ignored “numerous warnings” over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and has set out to “destroy the healthcare system in Gaza”.
It also alleges that Israeli military personnel have carried out sexual and gender-based violence, including “rape and sexualised torture”, as part of “a pattern of collective punishment”, and accuses Israeli forces of deliberately targeting some children “with the intention to kill them”.
Benjamin Netanyahu at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Pic: AP
Although other UN bodies and personnel have previously linked Israel’s actions with allegations of genocide, this is the first time that any UN body has claimed to have made a definitive judgment.
“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with the Israeli authorities at the highest echelons,” said Navi Pillay, the chair of the commission.
Within the report, it concludes that “Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide”.
Nearly 65,000 people are now believed to have died, according to figures collated by Gaza’s health ministry. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
The commission claims that a majority of these are women, children and elderly people.
The commission says it is now looking at further evidence against other individuals accused of inciting genocide.
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Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant for allegedly committing the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and also for war crimes during the Gaza conflict.
Mr Netanyahu described the warrants as “antisemitic”, while a sense of outrage echoed across much of the political spectrum in Israel.
Then US President Joe Biden called the warrants “outrageous”; his successor, Donald Trump, issued an executive order to introduce sanctions against personnel from the ICC, while inviting Netanyahu to the White House.
It is hard to believe that either Israel or the US will be any more accepting of this report. Israel has long claimed that the UN is biased against it and is more liable to criticise Israel than any other nation.
Marco Rubio speaks to media as he leaves Tel Aviv for Qatar. Pic: Reuters
The US, which offered a rare, if mild, rebuke to Mr Netanyahu after he launched an attack on Hamas officials in Qatar last week, has since sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Jerusalem as a sign of solidarity.
The commission has asked for nations to stop supplying Israel with weapons and says states have a “legal obligation” to do everything within their power “to stop the genocide in Gaza”.
It also calls on Israel to immediately allow “unhindered” access for internationally recognised aid agencies, including the UN.
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Does the UK think there’s a genocide in Gaza?
It wants the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), set up earlier this year by Israel with American help, in order to distribute aid, to be shut down.
Hundreds of people have been killed around GHF sites, while a separate UN-backed body has said that parts of Gaza have been designated as suffering from famine.
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Israel denies this – a senior military leader told me that “it is a pure, total lie – there is enough food for everyone”. It claims that the UN relied on faulty data and Hamas propaganda.
This latest UN report is likely to be met with similar claims.
Earlier this month, the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution stating that Israel’s conduct passed the threshold of committing genocide.
However, a report from the British government said it had “not concluded” that Israel intended to “destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a “clear position” from Donald Trump to stop Vladimir Putin and end the war in Ukraine.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News’ lead world presenter Yalda Hakim, the Ukrainian president said the only way for the fighting to stop was for defined security guarantees to first be put in place.
And that, he said, could only come if Mr Trump was bold.
He told Sky News he hopes UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer would drill into the detail of securing Ukraine’s future with the president during his state visit to Britain this week.
He said: “I very much hope he (Starmer) will be able to have a very specific discussion on the security guarantees of the US for Ukraine.
“Before we end the war, I really want to have all the agreements in place. I want to… have a document that is supported by the US and all European partners. This is very important.
“To make this happen, we need a clear position of President Trump.”
Zelenskyy and Trump have endured a sometimes testy relationship. Pic: Reuters
‘Make Putin afraid’
Mr Zelenskyy also urged the US leader to take “strong personal steps” to “stop Putin”, after Mr Trump urged NATO allies to stop buying Russian oil and put tariffs on China to pressure Moscow.
“I believe that the US is strong enough to take decisions of their own,” he said. “I believe Donald Trump can give us air defence systems in quantity and US has enough.
“I’m sure the US can apply enough sanctions in order to hurt the Russian economy, plus Donald Trump has enough force to make Putin afraid of him.
“Europe has already introduced 18 sanctions packages against Russia. And all that’s lacking now is a strong sanctions package from the US.”
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Russia rehearses for war
His comments came following criticism in his interview with Sky News – at the Presidential Palace in Kyiv – of the recent Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
He said Mr Trump “gave a lot to Putin” and that “he should have paid more” for it.
“I believe, if it was a trilateral meeting [with Ukraine included], we would have some result,” he added.
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Sky News exclusive interview with Zelenskyy
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As news broke that British fighter jets were flying air defence missions over Poland after a Russian drone incursion, Hakim asked the Ukrainian leader what message he thought Putin was sending to Europeans.
“He’s testing NATO,” he said. “He wants to see what NATO is ready for, what they’re capable of, both diplomatically and politically, and how the local population will respond to this.”
“Also, in my opinion, the other message they are sending is, ‘don’t you dare to give Ukraine additional air defence systems, because you might need them yourself.'”
Bristling with frustration – Zelenskyy’s message is clear
Ukraine’s president has a very clear message for Trump – you alone have the power to stop Putin, and the time to act is now.
Meeting with me in Kyiv on the eve of the US president’s state visit to Britain, Zelenskyy bristled with frustration at the failure of the Western powers to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin, even as the Russians escalated their attacks on Ukraine.
Asked if the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska has proven a mistake, he responded without hesitation that Putin is clearly not paying a price for his actions.
Zelenskyy believes Trump is reluctant to put pressure on Putin because it might jeopardise attempts to end the war.
But the Ukrainian leader argues this isn’t the way to handle the Russian president.
Zelenskyy also argued Trump’s emphasis on getting the Europeans to ratchet up economic pressure – foremost by stopping their purchases of Russian energy and tariffing other buyers like China and India – was understandable, but that the world’s sole superpower shouldn’t wait for others to act.
Trump has called on EU countries to end all Russian oil and gas purchases – and only then will he consider imposing sanctions on Russia.
Mr Trump arrives in the UK today for an unprecedented second state visit, following an invitation from King Charles.
He and First Lady Melania will stay at Windsor Castle and be treated to a flypast by the Red Arrows as well as UK and US F-35 military jets on the east lawn, and a special Beating Retreat military ceremony.
They will also visit Chequers, the prime minister’s official country residence in Buckinghamshire, though details of what they will discuss – and whether it will include the situation in Ukraine – have not been revealed.
Ukraine’s president has a very clear message for Donald Trump – you alone have the power to stop Vladimir Putin, and the time to act is now.
Meeting with me in Kyiv on the eve of the US president’s state visit to Britain, Volodymyr Zelenskyy bristled with frustration at the failure of the Western powers to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin, even as the Russians escalated their attacks on Ukraine.
Asked if the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska has proven a mistake, he responded without hesitation that Putin is clearly not paying a price for his actions.
“He should have received a setback in this war and stop. Instead, he received de-isolation,” he said.
“He definitely wants to trick the US. He is doing everything he can to avoid sanctions, to prevent the US and Trump from putting sanctions on him.”
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska last month. Pic: Reuters
Zelenskyy believes Trump is reluctant to put pressure on Putin because it might jeopardise attempts to end the war.
But the Ukrainian leader argues this isn’t the way to handle the Russian president: “He understands force. That’s his language. That’s the language he understands. He doesn’t speak many languages, but that’s the language of force he understands – just like Russian, you know, his mother tongue.”
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Russia rehearses for war
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Zelenskyy also argued Trump’s emphasis on getting the Europeans to ratchet up economic pressure – foremost by stopping their purchases of Russian energy, and by putting tariffs on other buyers like China and India – was understandable, but that the world’s superpower shouldn’t wait for others to act.
Trump has called on EU countries to end all Russian oil and gas purchases, and only then will he consider imposing sanctions on Russia.
“I think the US is strong enough on its own,” Zelenskyy said.
“They can make this happen quicker and all that’s lacking now is a strong sanctions package from the US.”
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