600 North Koreans Deported From China Last Month 'Disappeared'

China's border with North Korea in Dangdong City. (Wikimedia Commons/Prince Roy)

JAKARTA - A human rights group based in Seoul, South Korea said on Thursday, about 600 North Koreans who were forcibly deported from China last month 'disappeared', warning they might face prison sentences, torture, sexual violence and executions upon their return to their home country.

The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) report comes about two months after South Korea filed a protest to China, on suspicion of repatriating large numbers of North Koreans trying to flee to South Korea.

TJWG said hundreds of defectors were transported by bus and van guarded from China's detention center across the border into North Korea on October 9, calling the incident the largest mass repatriation in recent years.

"The identities of the defectors are still unknown, but most of them are women," he said.

"No communication has been established with the defectors since they were repatriated," the group said in a statement.

"Those who were forcibly repatriated face the possibility of torture, sexual violence and gender-based, imprisonment in concentration camps, forced abortion and execution because their authoritarian regime branded them "criminals" and "traitors"," he explained.

North Korean state media have not commented on this case, but have long denounced defectors as "human waste". Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been tightening borders over the past few years.

Separately, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October denied any "people called defectors" in China, but said North Koreans entered illegally for economic reasons, saying Beijing had always handled the matter by law.

It is known that the number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea reached its lowest point during the pandemic when North Korea closed its borders.