Over 2,800 N. Korean defectors come to South in 2008: report

SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- A total of 2,809 North Koreans arrived in South Korea
last year, bringing the cumulative number of North Korean defectors here to
nearly 17,000, a report showed Sunday.

The 2008 figure was up 11 percent from a year earlier. The annual increase rate
was 26 percent and 46 percent in 2007 and 2006, respectively, according to the
report submitted by Seoul's Unification Ministry to the National Assembly.
In the first eight months of this year, a total of 1,896 North Koreans also
arrived in the South, the ministry said.
China tightened control of its border with North Korea during and around the
Summer Olympics last year, prompting a slowdown of the North Korean influx here
in the latter half of the year.
Most defectors arrive in South Korea after escaping into China and then to a
third country in Southeast Asia. Beijing defines North Korean defectors as
illegal migrants seeking food or involved in smuggling, and says it is bound by
official policy to repatriate them to the North.
A total of 16,947 North Korean defectors have arrived in the South since the end
of the 1950-53 Korean War, a large number of which came starting in the late
1990s, according to the ministry.
In 1993, only 34 North Korean defectors settled in South Korea, but more have
streamed in annually, numbering 2,018 in 2006 and 2,544 in 2007, the ministry
said.
sam@yna.co.kr
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