One of the reasons we know so little about the horrors that go on in North Korea is that hardly anyone escapes to tell the tales.
Today, a group from North Korea made it to the Canadian embassy in Beijing:
Forty-four North Korean men, women and children scaled the walls of the Canadian embassy in Beijing in a likely bid for political asylum, an embassy spokesman said.
It was one of the largest groups ever to burst into a diplomatic compound in the Chinese capital in a desperate attempt to escape poverty and oppression in their Stalinist home country.
Officials are still sorting out exactly who is in that group. Until then, it is unclear what their fate will be, as China has not been sympathetic to refugees from the People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps:
China treats North Koreans as illegal immigrants and has an agreement with Pyongyang to deport those it catches. But it has allowed Koreans who succeed in getting into foreign missions to leave for South Korea via a third country.
Those returned can face harsh punishment by the Stalinist government.
If it is determined that these people are legitimate political asylum-seekers, one hopes that they will be granted asylum someplace safe… and allowed to speak whatever tales they may have to tell, to provide even a tiny insight into the vast darkness that is North Korea.