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17 January 2009 

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North Korea - Crossing the Border

     

A four-part series by VOA correspondent Luis Ramirez on the thousands of North Koreans who risk their lives each year to escape poverty and oppression by fleeing their country. Ramirez followed their trail, traveling from China's border with North Korea to Thailand, where they wait to take their final steps to freedom in South Korea or the United States.

     

 

North Korean soldiers with rifles in hand, patrol border
North Korean Defectors Risk Lives in Perilous Journey  Video clip available
Defectors, many of them women, flee to China where they are enslaved, sold into prostitution
Chinese village along North Korean border
China Faces Predicament Over North Korean Refugees  Video clip available
North Korea's defectors get no sympathy from Beijing, though some locals along China/North Korea border take great risks to help them
Street scene in Bangkok where hundreds of North Korean defectors wait for passage
Hundreds of North Korean Defectors Transit Through Thailand on Trek to Freedom  Video clip available
Thailand's policy of not deporting refugees has resulted in growing number of North Koreans making kingdom final stop in their trek to freedom
Workers in North Korea, seen from the Chinese border
For North Korean Defectors, Freedom Brings Fear of the Unknown  Video clip available
Escape From totalitarian North Korea brings exhilaration, but also apprehension for defectors

 Slideshow, with photos by Luis Ramirez

 
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