Inside North Korean detention camp where captured defectors face a ‘living hell’ of rape, torture-induced miscarriages and cruel guards murder newborn babies

By James On Oct 24, 2024

Escaped North Koreans returned to Kim’s hands face an inferno of rape- and torture-induced miscarriages, with newborns murdered and the elderly beaten to death.

That’s the gruesome testimony of a defector who escaped North Korea and was sent back six times before making her seventh and final attempt at freedom.

The defector, who is still in hiding in China and cannot be named for fear of arrest, has been given the alias Mrs.

She said most of the young women she was held with in North Korea were pregnant.

She said: ‘The guards tried to induce miscarriages by making the women sit in a squatting position for long periods of time or by forcing them to carry heavy buckets of water.

Above is a virtual replica of the Onsong detention camp in North Korea. It shows ten cells next to each other, as well as the staff quarters and interrogation rooms

The defector shelter in Onsong is less than a mile from the Chinese border

File photo of a North Korean soldier stands guard on the banks of the Yalu River in Sinuiju, North Korea, which borders Dandong in China’s Liaoning province

“They would drag them to the hospital if that didn’t work.”

She continued, “The worst was when North Korean security agents killed a newborn baby. Some women were captured when they were already in the last month of their pregnancy, with a very swollen abdomen.

‘The authorities tried every method to induce a miscarriage, but when that failed, the women were forced to give birth.

‘I heard that one of the mothers in the next room could hear her baby crying, but the cruel security guards wrapped the child in plastic and placed her face down.

‘The powerful cries gradually became fainter and the mother sobbed along until the baby’s voice died away completely.’

She added: ‘As a mother, it was like living in hell to see those girls in so much pain.’

According to a 2023 article by the Korea Times, more than 70 percent of defectors fleeing Kim Jong-un’s regime are women.

Some defectors are helped to escape by brokers but are then sold as brides in China, where a gender imbalance has fueled a black market trade.

But the Chinese state classifies North Korean defectors as illegal economic migrants rather than refugees, and repatriates those it captures.

According to the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), an NGO in South Korea, up to 600 defectors were repatriated last year in October alone.

Ms.

Based on testimonies from defectors, the facility has been virtually rebuilt

Inside are ten cells (one virtual replica pictured above), each holding twenty people and sometimes more, according to the NGO Korea Future. Inside, prisoners are forced to sit cross-legged and motionless for more than 12 hours a day, under penalty of torture, and cannot use their cell’s open toilet without permission from a guard.

Defector Mrs.

She described the case of a young woman, alias Yeong-yi, who had been a classmate of her daughter.

She said: ‘There were numerous examples of girls, who could be considered daughters or younger sisters, being used as sexual playthings.

‘Yeong-yi, only 21 years old, was tormented by a 57-year-old military officer named Mr Park.

‘Her nipples had been bitten so badly that they were unrecognizable, and her abdomen had been burned in several places by a cigarette, with pus oozing from it.

‘Despite the horrific injuries and her suffering, all I could do was clean her wounds with salt water.

‘I couldn’t protest because I knew it would only lead to more damage. We just held back our tears and persevered.”

Old age brought no special treatment. At a shelter for captured defectors in Onsong, Mrs.

She said: ‘The terrifying atmosphere in the detention center caused her to keep reverting to her South Korean dialect, which enraged the chief officer.

“He yelled at her, ‘you dirty old hag, are you still speaking that southern dialect because you’re from the south?’

‘ He then cursed her viciously and stamped on her repeatedly with his boots. Finally, he grabbed a chair and beat her until he was exhausted.

‘The elderly woman was left torn like a rag, her trousers soaked in urine and feces.’

The lice-infested cells are accessed through a small door through which prisoners must crawl on their hands and knees, the human rights group said.

Ms X said: ‘There were numerous examples of girls, who could be considered daughters or younger sisters, being used as sexual playthings [in the detention camps]’ (file image of a North Korean soldier looking through binoculars)

With her dying breath, the woman begged that her daughter be informed of her fate – a promise Mrs.

The defector shelter in Onsong is less than a mile from the Chinese border.

Based on testimonies from defectors, the facility has been virtually rebuilt. Inside are ten cells, each holding 20 people and sometimes even more, according to the NGO Korea Future.

The lice-infested cells are accessed through a small door through which prisoners must crawl on their hands and knees, the rights group said.

Inside, prisoners are forced to sit cross-legged and motionless for more than 12 hours a day, under penalty of torture, and cannot use their cell’s open toilet without permission from a guard.

Mrs.

‘The food was insufficient and the hygiene was indescribably bad. In six months, more than 130 detainees died of abdominal diseases.’

She was also held in a prison in Chongjin, on North Korea’s east coast. The TJWG identified it as a location about five miles southwest of downtown.

Mrs. She said: ‘I remember the head of the center laughing and saying, “Our center’s dog may not die, but it doesn’t matter if you do,” as he looked at the bodies piling up every day .

“We were treated like less than the stones on the ground.”