‘A lot of punishment, no food, hard work’: North Korean defector’s fears for sister who will ‘die in jail’
Kim Kyu-li welled up when she talked about the family she’s lost.
It must sometimes feel that ghosts and fragments are all she has left of them – such is the way when you’re a defector from North Korea.
But there was a very particular, very raw pain when she spoke about her younger sister, Kim Cheol-ok.
Cheol-ok escaped from North Korea to China in the late 1990s. But within days she was sold into marriage by traffickers and spent the next 25 years in the country – only to be arrested in 2023 by Chinese police and deported back to the country she sacrificed so much to escape.
She has, in a sense, just vanished.
And she is not alone. Human rights groups have told Sky News they believe the deportation of North Korean defectors from China is continuing “apace”.
It comes after October saw the largest mass deportation event in at least a decade, with up to 500 people sent back in just one day. A further 100 were deported during August and September.
It has caused such alarm that China was questioned for the first time on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) last week, the fourth such review into China’s human rights record since 2009.
We met Ms Kim at her home in Morden, south London. She has her own remarkable story about escaping across the North Korean border into China as a teenager and eventually making it to the UK.
But it is not her story we have come to discuss.
Protesters call for an end to the deportations
Sold to a husband three times her age
At the time of her flight, Ms Kim did not take her younger sister with her.
Cheol-ok made her journey to China a few years later at the age of 14 to escape the devastating famine that was gripping North Korea.
But within a few days of her escape, Cheol-ok was sold by traffickers to a husband three times her age. Her sister then lost all trace of her for the following two decades.
It wasn’t until 2020, with the aid of Chinese social media, that they reconnected against the odds.
“I felt I got all the world,” Ms Kim reminisced with a smile, “every day we were talking, just crying, crying.”
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A dangerous undocumented life
By this time, Cheol-ok was nearly 40 and had a grown-up daughter of her own. She had survived in China for 25 years with regular payments to local officials to avoid being reported, a cost Ms Kim said the family could barely afford.
But North Korean escapees in China have no ID, and no right to work or access basic services like healthcare. It is a dangerous, undocumented life.
“In January she caught coronavirus very hard, very hard,” explained Ms Kim, “but she can’t go to the hospital, nobody cares. During that time she understood [that she had to leave China].”
“When she got better she said, ‘sister, I have to come. If I stay here, I will die like this’.”
‘It’s already too late’
So they made secret plans for her to travel to Vietnam, a well-worn route for North Korean defectors. But just two hours into her journey she was arrested by Chinese police.
Within six months the nightmare scenario for her family came true – with a call from Cheol-ok’s daughter saying her mother would be deported to North Korea in just two hours’ time.
“It’s already too late,” Ms Kim said with tears in her eyes, “we can’t do anything, what can we do in two hours?”
She now lives with the agony of knowing what likely awaits Cheol-ok back in their home country.
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Punishment, no food, hard work
“There will be a lot of punishment, no food in the jail, hard work,” she said.
“She doesn’t speak Korean anymore, she has no family there, she will die in jail.”
When she thought of China, the country she believes abandoned her sister, she choked on her tears.
“Twenty-five years she lived there, it is her home now.
“How could they do that?! Maybe they have a relationship with North Korea, but they shouldn’t do that. It’s not human, we are not animals. If she goes back to North Korea [she will be treated] like flies, they kill flies.”
North Korea enforced a strict three-year border closure in response to the COVID pandemic
Mass deportation
The Seoul-based human rights NGO Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), has worked closely with other agencies tracking deportations. It believes Cheol-ok was in a group of up to 500 others all deported on 9 October, the largest mass deportation event in over a decade.
They have identified five crossing points along the 850-mile border. They believe the majority of people sent back were women, and the identities of most of them are not known.
The most prominent of the crossing points is in the city of Dandong, on the western end of North Korea’s border.
The bridge there, which crosses the Yalu River dividing the two countries, is a tourist attraction and a tribute to the Chinese soldiers who used it to join the fighting in the Korean war.
It stood largely empty during the pandemic, as North Korea enforced a strict three-year border closure.
We saw a handful of trucks making the journey across.
“Sometimes there are more, sometimes less,” one woman who works under the bridge told us, “sometimes there’s no trucks for the whole day, sometimes there are a few more.”
It was these border closures that caused such a large backlog in deportations.
A truck crosses the bridge over the Yalu River
Defectors seen as traitors
Multiple reports from inside North Korea say defectors are seen as traitors and punished brutally with imprisonment, torture and possibly execution.
Other accounts say three years of border closures have wrought poverty and starvation.
But China has argued to the UN there is no evidence of such treatment and therefore the deportations are not illegal under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
“There is no such thing as a North Korean ‘defector’ in China,” said Wang Wenbin, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs when asked by Sky News.
He said: “People who come to China illegally for economic reasons are not refugees. They have violated Chinese law and have disrupted the order of China’s entry and exit administration.
“China has always dealt with these people in accordance with the principle of combining domestic law, international law and humanitarianism.”
Pressure on China
But international pressure over the issue is growing. For the first time South Korea questioned China at a UN Human Rights Council review.
South Korea’s ambassador to the UN office in Geneva, Yun Seong-deok, said Beijing should stop repatriating North Koreans.
However, experts say any such pressure will almost certainly come second to the bigger geopolitical picture in which China needs a stable North Korea.
In the context of the war in Ukraine and the heightening tension between West and East, China’s alliance with Russia and other like-minded nations is paramount.
“In Beijing, it’s much more about geopolitics, and their primary interest is maintaining good relations with North Korea,” explained Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal analyst at TJWG.
“The last thing they want is to destabilise the North Korean state.
“The feared scenario from Beijing is that this kind of exodus, or floodgate, of North Korean escapees would result in the collapse of North Korea, as happened with East Germany back in 1989.”
‘Stay strong’
These issues feel all the more pressing now in the context of North Korea’s recent relationship building with Russia and heightened threats against South Korea.
Some experts believe North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un may seriously be considering conflict.
Back in London, Ms Kim said she will not stop fighting. But it must sometimes feel that no one is listening.
She said she believes she will see Cheol-ok again, and wants to tell her to “stay strong”.
But she knows she is a pawn in a much bigger picture.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike
The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.
Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.
The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.
A wounded child is treated after the strike on the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.
Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.
When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.
Blood stains are seen on containers at the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.
Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.
Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.
The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
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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 58,000 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.
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Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
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‘At least 59 killed’ in Gaza after Israeli military opens fire near aid centre and carries out strikes
At least 59 Palestinians have reportedly been killed after the Israeli military opened fire near an aid centre in Gaza and carried out strikes across the territory.
The Red Cross, which operates a field hospital in Rafah, said 25 people were “declared dead upon arrival” and “six more died after admittance” following gunfire near an aid distribution centre in the southern Gazan city.
The humanitarian organisation added that it also received 132 patients “suffering from weapon-related injuries” after the incident.
The Red Cross said: “The overwhelming majority of these patients sustained gunshot wounds, and all responsive individuals reported they were attempting to access food distribution sites.”
The organisation said the number of deaths marks the hospital’s “largest influx of fatalities” since it began operations in May last year.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
It said in a statement: “Earlier today, several suspects were identified approaching IDF troops operating in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops, hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site.
“IDF troops operated in order to prevent the suspects from approaching them and fired warning shots.”
Palestinians mourn a loved one following the incident near the aid centre. Pic: Reuters
Mother’s despair over shooting
Somia Alshaar told Sky News her 17-year-old son Nasir was shot dead while visiting the aid centre after she told him not to go.
She said: “He went to get us tahini so we could eat.
“He went to get flour. He told me ‘mama, we don’t have tahini. Today I’ll bring you flour. Even if it kills me, I will get you flour’.
“He left the house and didn’t return. They told me at the hospital: your son…’Oh God, oh Lord’.”
Asked where her son was shot, she replied: “In the chest. Yes, in the chest.”
Somia Alshaar, pictured with her daughter, says her son was shot dead. Pic: Reuters
‘A policy of mass murder’
Hassan Omran, a paramedic with Gaza’s ministry of health, told Sky News after the incident that humanitarian aid centres in Gaza are now “centres of mass death”.
Speaking in Khan Younis, he said: “Today, there were more than 150 injuries and more than 20 martyrs at the aid distribution centres… the Israeli occupation deliberately kills and commits genocide. The Israeli occupation is carrying out a policy of mass murder.
“They call people to come get their daily food, and then, when citizens arrive at these centres, they are killed in cold blood.
“All the victims have gunshot wounds to the head and chest, meaning the enemy is committing these crimes deliberately.”
Israel has rejected genocide accusations and denies targeting civilians.
Two boys mourn their brother at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
‘Lies being peddled’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial US and Israeli-backed group which operates the distribution centre near Rafah, said: “Hamas is claiming there was violence at our aid distribution sites today. False.
“Once again, there were no incidents at or in the immediate vicinity of our sites.
“But that’s not stopping some from spreading the lies being peddled by ‘officials’ at the Hamas-controlled Nasser Hospital.”
The Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah has recorded more than 250 fatalities and treated more than 3,400 “weapon-wounded patients” since new food distribution sites were set up in Gaza on 27 May.
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Palestinians inspect the wreckage after an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah. Pic: AP
It comes after four children and two women were among at least 13 people who died in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli strikes pounded the area starting late on Friday, officials in Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the territory said.
Fifteen others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to a request for comment on the reported deaths.
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Israeli has been carrying out attacks in Gaza since Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The latest fatalities in Gaza comes as a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man was beaten to death by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health ministry said.
Sayafollah Musallet, also known as Saif, was killed during a confrontation between Palestinians and settlers in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, the ministry said.
A second man, Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, died after being shot in the chest.
Mr Musallet’s family, from Tampa Florida, has called on the US State Department to lead an “immediate investigation”.
A State Department spokesperson said it was aware of the incident but it had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.
The Israeli military said the confrontation broke out after Palestinians threw rocks at Israelis, lightly injuring them.
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