Fleeing North Korea Is Becoming Harder

[Christknight104]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/world/asia/crackdowns-make-fleeing-north-korea-harder.html?_r=0

CHEONAN, South Korea — The Rev. Kim Seung-eun said he could measure the increasing difficulty of smuggling people out of North Korea by the higher cost of bribing North Korean soldiers on the Chinese border to look the other way.


"They demand not only more cash, but also all kinds of things for themselves and their superiors," said Mr. Kim, a South Korean human rights activist who helps North Koreans flee their totalitarian homeland and resettle in the South. "They've developed a taste for South Korean goods, too."

Under North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un, human rights activists and South Korean officials say, it has become increasingly difficult to smuggle refugees out of the country, contributing to a sharp drop in the number of North Koreans reaching South Korea in the past year.

[TerrorDæmonum]

China has even stopped sending people back. Perhaps that is a link to the difficulty. Before, the North could count on China not being a good way to go.