~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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N. Koreans beg asylum from French in Vietnam

SEOUL - Four North Koreans entered the French embassy in Vietnam Friday and asked for asylum and a flight to South Korea, French diplomats in Paris and reports in South Korea said. The four barged into the French mission in the afternoon, the diplomats in the French capital said, confirming a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We are in contact with the Vietnamese authorities over the matter," one diplomat said, adding that the North Koreans' exact demands were not known at this point.

But Yonhap quoted a South Korean human rights activist, Kim Yo-Han, as saying she had received a call from a South Korean missionary in Vietnam confirming the asylum bid by the four. The group was said to consist of a man in his 40s, and two women and one man all in their 20s. Kim said the North Koreans had sought the help of South Korean activists working in Vietnam for North Korean refugees before entering the French embassy. Contacted by AFP, the French embassy in Hanoi declined to give any details about the asylum bid.

The latest defection attempt follows another asylum bid by seven North Koreans who barged into a Japanese school in Beijing earlier Friday. Chronic food and energy shortages have driven a growing number of North Koreans from their impoverished homeland to seek refuge in South Korea. More than 4,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since 1953. The number has shot up in the past three years, with more than 1,000 having reached South Korea so far this year. Most refugees who enter foreign compounds are discreetly spirited out of the country to South Korea via a third country, to avoid upsetting Pyongyang.

North Korean defectors have become an even more sensitive issue since 468 refugees from the Stalinist state were airlifted to Seoul from Vietnam in July in the biggest defection since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. The mass defection triggered anger in Pyongyang and damaged inter-Korean ties. China treats North Koreans as illegal immigrants and has an agreement with Pyongyang to return those it catches, to face potential harsh punishment at home.

Agence France Press - December 17, 2004.


Four take refuge at French embassy in Hanoi

HANOI - Four people claiming to be North Koreans have taken refuge in the French Embassy in Hanoi, embassy officials confirmed Saturday. "There are four refugees in our embassy. They declare themselves to be North Korean. We are studying the case,'' said Alexis Andres, First Secretary for the French Embassy in the Vietnamese capital. The four entered the embassy Friday afternoon, he said. He declined to give any specifics about the group.

Andres said the French embassy is working on "different scenarios'' to resolve the issue, but he gave no other details on what the refugees have asked for. "To determine their status, we need to study this further. It will take a long time to solve the problem,'' he said.

North Korean refugees have made well-publicized attempts to seek political asylum at foreign embassies in other countries, most notably in China. The latest attempt follows an asylum bid Friday in Beijing by seven North Koreans who climbed over a barbed wire fence with their bare hands into a Japanese school. They were later taken to the Japanese Embassy.

In July, the South Korean government facilitated the largest mass defection of North Koreans by chartering two planes carrying nearly 460 refugees from an unidentified Southeast Asian country. Most of those refugees had illegally entered the country via China. There has been a steady stream of defectors in recent years as more North Koreans flee hunger and repression in their communist country. Most cross the North's long border with China before heading to other countries.

Human rights groups have said that hundreds of North Koreans were living in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries. Over 5,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. Last year, the number of defectors arriving in the South reached 1,285, up from 1,140 in 2002 and 583 in 2001.

The Koreas were divided in 1945. Their border remains sealed and heavily guarded by nearly 2 million troops on both sides following the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The Associated Press - December 18, 2004.