29 NORTH KOREANS SEEK ASYLUM IN BEIJING SCHOOL
Hoping For Asylum In The South They Enter School While Classes Are In Session
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
BEIJING, CHINA (ANS) -- As many as 29 North Korean asylum seekers entered a South Korean school in Beijing on Friday, a diplomat and news reports said, adding to a surge in large-scale defections by people fleeing their nation's dictatorship, the Associated Press (AP) reports in a story carried in International Herald Tribune. (Pictured: The North Koreans are hoping for asylum in the South. Credit: AP via BBC web site).
Twenty-three women and six men entered the school on the rural northern outskirts of the Chinese capital Friday morning, South Korea's national news agency, Yonhap, reported. "We fled North Korea and want to live in South Korea," they were quoted as saying.
An Asian diplomat in Beijing confirmed that more than 20 North Koreans had entered the school. He said he had no other details and refused to be identified further, the newspaper said.
The North Koreans, who included two children, entered the school through its unlocked, unguarded back gate, Yonhap said. It said South Korean officials had asked China not to arrest them and planned to move the group to a consular office.
The newspaper reports that hundreds of North Koreans fleeing their repressive government have been allowed to leave for South Korea over the past three years after seeking asylum in embassies and other foreign offices in China, North Korea's last major ally.
The size of groups of asylum-seekers has steadily increased. In the biggest attempt yet, a group of 44 North Koreans climbed over a spiked fence to enter the Canadian Embassy in September. They were still there on Friday, the AP report said.
It is not clear whether the increase in asylum bids and publicity about them are having any effect on Chinese diplomatic efforts to arrange a new round of six-nation talks with North Korea about its nuclear program, the agency reported.
Last week, 20 people claiming to be North Korean asylum-seekers scaled walls and crawled under barbed wire to reach the South Korean Consulate in Beijing. In September, 29 would-be defectors climbed a wall to get into the Japanese school in Beijing. (Pictured: Security guards walk through the gate of the Korean School in Beijing where as many as 29 North Korean asylum seekers entered the school earlier Friday - Credit:AP/Greg Baker).
In the attempt Friday, video shot by a Yonhap reporter showed the North Koreans walking through the school gate and into a weedy backyard. A small child held a woman's hand and scurried to keep up, but the group looked relaxed and did not seem to be in a hurry -- perhaps to avoid attracting attention.
After walking a few hundred meters, the North Koreans reached the school building. They were taken to a room with a round conference table, where the video showed them chatting and smiling.
Classes at the school were held as usual on Friday, an embassy official said on the condition of anonymity. It is the main Korean school in Beijing, with 500 to 600 students, and many South Korean diplomats send their children there.
NORTH IS SAID TO SELL FOOD AID
North Korea has been selling on its domestic market international food aid aimed at helping to ease food shortages in the impoverished country, South Korea's Unification Ministry said in Seoul on Friday, according to Reuters.
In spite of the allegation, the ministry said at a meeting with the World Food Program that it would donate 100,000 tons of corn to the North via the organization as usual.
"North Korea has been selling locally to its citizens not only food aid provided on credit but also aid donated for free as that's their system," a ministry official said earlier on Friday.
The World Food Program denied, however, that aid it donated was being sold by North Korea.
NORTH KOREANS SEEK ASYLUM IN SCHOOL
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said a group of 29 people identifying themselves as North Koreans have sought asylum in a South Korean school in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
The South Korean news agency Yonhap says the group cut through a wire fence to enter the building, which does not seem to have diplomatic status. (Pictured: China tightened security after recent invasions of foreign missions - Credit:AFP via BBC web site).
Around 20 people claiming to be North Koreans entered South Korea's consulate in Beijing last week. Asylum-seekers have been invading foreign missions in China since 2002, the BBC reported.
Despite having an agreement with Pyongyang to repatriate such people, the Chinese have allowed many to travel to South Korea through third countries.
'NEW DEVELOPMENT'
The latest group, 23 women and six men, got into the unguarded five-storey building through a rear entrance and crowded into the headmaster's office on the ground floor, Yonhap reports.
According to an unconfirmed report, classes were in session when the group moved in, the BBC said.
The school, which has 556 South Korean students, immediately informed the South Korean embassy of the incident and called for support and guidance, Yonhap adds.
"Their entry here has been reported to the embassy and we are waiting for its order," school official Yoo In-hoo was quoted as saying by South Korean cable news network YTN.
An unnamed South Korean diplomat told Reuters news agency the school invasion was a new development for his country.
"We think we need consultation with the Chinese side on this case," the diplomat said. "We hope the Chinese side will deal with this case as they do with others."
Nine North Koreans who entered the American School in Shanghai in September were handed over to police on the grounds that that school had no diplomatic status.
RISKY STRATEGY
More than 460 North Korean refugees were airlifted to South Korea in July from Vietnam, in an action which enraged Pyongyang. But seeking asylum at foreign embassies in China remains a risky strategy for North Koreans, according to correspondents.
As Pyongyang's closest traditional ally, Beijing is loath to take any steps that might destabilize its neighbor or lead to waves of asylum seekers pouring over the border, the BBC said.
So China often deports North Koreans it catches back to their homeland. It has also thrown heavy security around embassies to try to deter such asylum attempts.
Despite the risks, many North Koreans are still prepared to take the chance and activists estimate that about 200,000 are currently hiding in China.
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