North Korea Defector

Video footage released by an organisation that works with North Korean defectors shows North Korean authorities publicly sentencing two teenagers to 12 years' hard labour for watching K-pop.

South Korean authorities on Tuesday detained a North Korean boat carrying people believed to be seeking to defect from the isolated country, the military said.

A man who entered North Korea on New Year's Day by breaching the heavily fortified border from the South is presumed to be a defector from the North, the defence ministry in Seoul said Monday.

In the 10 years since Kim Jong Un came to power, North Korea has cracked down on people trying to get out of the country, leaving many defectors without hope of seeing their families and homeland again.

North Korean defectors in Tokyo symbolically summoned Kim Jong Un to court on Thursday over a repatriation programme they describe as "state kidnapping".

A North Korean defector wore a diving suit and fins during a daring six-hour swim around one of the world's most fortified borders, a Seoul official said, and was caught only after apparently falling asleep.

North Korean soldiers shot dead a suspected South Korean defector at sea and burned his body as a coronavirus precaution after he was interrogated in the water over several hours, Seoul military officials said Thursday.

Balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets were launched towards North Korea, a defector-led activist group said Tuesday, a move likely to provoke fury north of the border.

North Korea's army is ready to take action if defector groups push ahead with their campaign to send propaganda leaflets into North Korea, state media said on Tuesday, in the latest warning of retaliatory measures.

A day after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with South Korea over defectors who send propaganda and contraband into the North, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations.

Defectors from North Korea say many of their relatives and contacts were unaware of the international speculation over leader Kim Jong Un's health or were unwilling to discuss the issue in clandestine calls made from the South.

North Korea is evading U.N. sanctions to cash in on soaring domestic demand for smartphones, using low-cost hardware imports to generate significant income for the regime, according to defectors, experts and an analysis of North Korean-made phones.

The bodies of a North Korean defector and her young son have been found in their apartment, Seoul police said Tuesday, with local media reporting they appeared to have died of starvation.

The personal information of nearly 1,000 North Koreans who defected to South Korea has been leaked after unknown hackers got access to a resettlement agency's database, the South Korean Unification Ministry said on Friday.

This was Heo's world. She agreed to tell her story to The Washington Post, abandoning the normal cloak of anonymity used by defectors worried that speaking openly could endanger relatives back home.

Video footage released by an organisation that works with North Korean defectors shows North Korean authorities publicly sentencing two teenagers to 12 years' hard labour for watching K-pop.

South Korean authorities on Tuesday detained a North Korean boat carrying people believed to be seeking to defect from the isolated country, the military said.

A man who entered North Korea on New Year's Day by breaching the heavily fortified border from the South is presumed to be a defector from the North, the defence ministry in Seoul said Monday.

In the 10 years since Kim Jong Un came to power, North Korea has cracked down on people trying to get out of the country, leaving many defectors without hope of seeing their families and homeland again.

North Korean defectors in Tokyo symbolically summoned Kim Jong Un to court on Thursday over a repatriation programme they describe as "state kidnapping".

A North Korean defector wore a diving suit and fins during a daring six-hour swim around one of the world's most fortified borders, a Seoul official said, and was caught only after apparently falling asleep.

North Korean soldiers shot dead a suspected South Korean defector at sea and burned his body as a coronavirus precaution after he was interrogated in the water over several hours, Seoul military officials said Thursday.

Balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets were launched towards North Korea, a defector-led activist group said Tuesday, a move likely to provoke fury north of the border.

North Korea's army is ready to take action if defector groups push ahead with their campaign to send propaganda leaflets into North Korea, state media said on Tuesday, in the latest warning of retaliatory measures.

A day after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with South Korea over defectors who send propaganda and contraband into the North, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations.

Defectors from North Korea say many of their relatives and contacts were unaware of the international speculation over leader Kim Jong Un's health or were unwilling to discuss the issue in clandestine calls made from the South.

North Korea is evading U.N. sanctions to cash in on soaring domestic demand for smartphones, using low-cost hardware imports to generate significant income for the regime, according to defectors, experts and an analysis of North Korean-made phones.

The bodies of a North Korean defector and her young son have been found in their apartment, Seoul police said Tuesday, with local media reporting they appeared to have died of starvation.

The personal information of nearly 1,000 North Koreans who defected to South Korea has been leaked after unknown hackers got access to a resettlement agency's database, the South Korean Unification Ministry said on Friday.

This was Heo's world. She agreed to tell her story to The Washington Post, abandoning the normal cloak of anonymity used by defectors worried that speaking openly could endanger relatives back home.