Generations of South Korean prisoners of war are being used as slave labour in North Korean coal mines to generate money for the regime and its weapons programme, according to a report released by a human rights organisation. The BBC has taken a closer look at the allegations.
“When I see slaves shackled and dragged on TV, I see myself,” Choi Ki-sun told me. He was one of an estimated 50,000 prisoners seized by North Korea at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
“When we were dragged to labour camps, we were at gun point, lined up with armed guards around. What else could this be if not slave labour?”
Mr Choi (not his real name) said he continued to work in a mine in North Hamgyeong province alongside around 670 other prisoners of war (POWs) until his escape, 40 years later.
It is not easy to get stories out of the mines. Those who survive, like Mr Choi, tell stories of fatal explosions and mass executions. They reveal how they existed on minimal rations while being encouraged to get married and have children who – like Mr Choi’s – would later have no choice but to follow them into the mines.
“Generations of people are born, live and die in the mining zones and experience the worst type of persecution and discrimination throughout their lifetime,” explains Joanna Hosaniak, one of the authors of a new report, Blood Coal Export from North Korea, from the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korea Human Rights (NKHR).
The report outlines the inner workings of the state’s coal mines and alleges that criminal gangs, including the Japanese Yakuza, have helped Pyongyang smuggle goods out of the country earning untold sums of money – one report estimates the figure at hundreds of millions of dollars – which is thought to be used to prop up the secretive state’s weapons programme.
The report is based on the accounts of 15 people who have first-hand knowledge of North Korea’s coal mines. The BBC interviewed one of the contributors and we have independently heard from four others who claim to have suffered and escaped from North Korea’s coal mines. All but one person asked us to protect their identity to keep their remaining families in North Korea safe.
Source:Fiilafmonline/BBC
