If true, a mass defection would be a humiliating blow to the Pyongyang leadership. North Korea planning terror attack on South, spy agency says Following their voluntary request to defect, our government accepted them from a humanitarian point of view.” In response, the South Korean Unification Ministry issued a statement to CNN: “13 defectors voluntarily decided to leave and pushed ahead with the escape without any help from the outside. “I think about our colleagues being deceived and dragged to South Korea and facing extreme hardship there,” said a sobbing Han Yun Hui. The waitresses in Pyongyang claim their manager, and a South Korean businessman, coordinated the trip under the direction of government authorities in Seoul. “The car was already waiting for us at that time,” Choe said as she broke down in tears. “In mid-March our restaurant manager gathered us together and told us that our restaurant would be moved to somewhere in Southeast Asia,” said head waitress Choe Hye Yong.Ĭhoe says by the time the manager revealed, only to her, that they would actually be defecting to South Korea, she only had time to “warn” a handful of the waitresses. They claim the restaurant manager tricked the other 12 waitresses into leaving, by lying about their final destination. This is the first time they have spoken publicly. The seven waitresses, presented exclusively to a CNN team in Pyongyang on Monday, are workers from the same Ningbo restaurant, who have since returned to North Korea. North Korean official on Trump: “Totally absurd and illogical” “The workers said that they learned about the reality in South Korea through South Korean TV, soap operas, movies and (the) internet,” said South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee at the time.Ī spokesman for the North Korean Red Cross quickly denounced the apparent defections as a “group abduction” of North Korean employees “in broad daylight,” according to KCNA – the official mouthpiece of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s government. Senior North Korean officer defects to South Last week, South Korea announced 12 North Korean women and one man defected after “feeling pressure from North Korean authorities” to send foreign currency back to their homeland, according to a South Korean government spokesman. None of us would ever do that,” said waitress Han Yun Hui, sobbing alongside her colleagues. “We would never leave our parents, country, and leader Kim Jong Un. And these women’s lives have become extraordinarily complicated. Until earlier this month, they were waitresses at a state-owned and operated restaurant in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, in southern China. The odd reality behind Shanghai’s Pyongyang restaurants They come from good families and were chosen for the coveted assignment of working abroad to earn money for their government. The women, all in their 20s, represent some of the most trusted citizens in the North Korean capital. Most wear little or no makeup, black jackets, and patriotic red lapel pins. 9 8 million infections since late April with just 74 deaths for an official fatality rate of 0.ġ1 The country has one of the world’s worst healthcare systems, with poorly equipped hospitals, few intensive care units, and no Covid-19 treatment drugs or vaccines, experts say.ġ2 In contrast, South Korea - with its advanced healthcare systems and highly vaccinated population - has a reported Covid fatality rate of 0.ġ3 12 percent, according to official data.ġ4 ‘Hard to believe’“It is hard to believe any country if they say that the confirmed number of patients has suddenly gone to zero,” Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean studies scholar, told AFP.ġ5 “Like its military weapons and nuclear programmes, it seems right to say that Covid is also being used to highlight Kim Jong Un’s leadership and shore up loyalty, regardless of what the truth is.ġ7 Pyongyang said in late May it had started seeing “progress” in controlling the outbreak but experts, including the World Health Organization, have repeatedly cast doubt on the claim.ġ8 North Korea is not believed to have vaccinated any of its roughly 25 million people, having rejected jabs offered by the WHO’s Covax programme.ġ9 The Seoul-based specialist site NK News reported that North Korea imported 3,554 invasive ventilators from China in June, sharply up from April, despite an overall decrease in trade.Ģ0 But Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP that Pyongyang’s claim to have brought the epidemic under control seemed “somewhat reliable”.Ģ1 Things could be getting back to normal as “there are no signs of tighter border control, no official request has been made to Beijing for medical aid or equipment, and Pyongyang-based diplomats remain in place”, he said.The door opens and seven women walk quietly into the ornate lobby of the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang.
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