Refugee Crisis on the North Korea-China Border

In preparation for next summer’s Beijing Olympics, the government of China has stepped up its repatriation of North Korean refugees in an effort to eradicate them before the end of 2007.

Dozens of protestors, most of whom are Korean, demonstrated in front of Embassy of China in Washington DC to urge Chinese government to stop forcing North Korean refugees back to North Korea to face certain torture, imprisonment and even execution for fleeing their homeland.

According to North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC), who organized the demonstration, China also jails humanitarian workers who try to help refugees, refuses the UN High Commission for Refugees access to the North Korean asylum seeders, and blocks the refugees from seeking resettlement in countries willing to resettle them.

At the rally, Suzanne Scholte, Chairwoman of NKFC, said North Korean refugee crisis is the most solvable refugee crisis in the world today, for the North Korean refugee are the only refugee population that have a place to go as they have South Korean citizenship under the Republic of Korea constitution and the United States has consistently offered resettlement for those who qualify.

In a letter sent to the president of People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao, NKFC requests that China comply with its international obligations in its treatment of these refugees, specifically the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, which oblige China not the repatriate these refugees.

Steve Kim, who used to be a businessman, was imprisoned in China for four years for the crime of helping North Korean refugees safely reach South Korea. He was released two months ago, and he said China’s violent treatment of North Korean refugees and humanitarian workers kills the spirit of the Olympics.

Currently, it is believed that an average of 100 to 200 North Koreans each week are being repatriated against their will by Chinese authorities to North Korea.