Give Life and Hope to a North Korean Refugee

In aiding North Korean refugees, NKHR prioritizes those who are especially vulnerable, such as women with small children. To date, we directly assisted over 680 North Korean refugees in finding safe haven in South Korea. As of 2016, a total of 30,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea.

Last year, thanks to a large international support of contemporary "Shindlers" - people of good will, we assisted 112 refugees (66 women, 16 men, 7 teens and 23 young children). We spent over $208,000 in relief activities. Our safe places provide others with clothing or medicines.

In the first half of 2016, we were already able to rescue 50 people. After their arrival in South Korea, each North Korean has to go through an interrogation by intelligence service and then go through 12-weeks resettlement program in the government center called Hanawon. During that time, their contact with the outside world is restricted. This means that in majority of cases, we are able to meet freely with most of our beneficiaries only after they are released from Hanawon and receive government-supported housing in South Korea. The whole process takes about 6 months.

Late July, we were able to meet first of the group of people we helped in recent months; a young boy in his 20s who belonged to a group that was arrested during the transportation and was threatened to be deported to North Korea. Thanks to our prompt intervention with international governments and the UN, the deportation was prevented and the group was sent to South Korea. The boy has just recently left the resettlement center, but is going through a psychological treatment due to trauma he experienced during arrest and due to threats of deportation to North Korea, where, if it happened, he would be imprisoned for many years or even executed just for escaping the country.

In our relief efforts, we hope to repeat the statistics of last year, although the most recent reports claim increase of control and deportations due to deterioriating political situation between South Korea, North Korea and China. Our ability to help North Korean refugees depends each year on the intensity of control and deportations in third countries. At times, it makes our relief operations impossible due to safety reasons.