A North Korean defector has described how she was forced to have an abortion following her repatriation from China and how starved dead prisoners were fed to dogs.
Speaking at the United Nations, Ji Hyeon-A, repatriated three times to North Korea after she was caught in China before eventually managing to escape the brutal regime,
She gave her harrowing testimony at United Nations event entitled ‘The Terrifying experience of forcibly Repatriated North Korean women,’ and was sponsored by the Britain U.S. France, Japan, South Korea and Canada.
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Ji Hyeon-A was speaking at a United Nations event about the experiences of women sent back to North Korea
Ji Hyeon-A said the North Korean regime does not tolerate mixed race babies so women who got pregnant in China were forced to have abortions.
‘Pregnant women were forced into harsh labor all day. At night, we heard pregnant mothers screaming and babies died without ever being able to see their mothers.’
At one detention centre, she described how inmates starved to death with their dead bodies given to the guard dogs for food.
The third time Ji Hyeon-A got caught and sent back to North Korea she was three months pregnant.
Ji Hyeon-A described the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un (pictured) as a ‘vast terrifying prison’
She tearfully described how she was forced to have an abortion without medication at a local police station.
‘My first child passed away without ever seeing the world, without any time for me to apologize.’
She finally reached South Korea in 2007 and has since been reunited with her mother, brother and her younger sister but has not heard any news about her father.
Ji-Hyeon-A said that the North Korean soldier who recently escaped to South Korea ‘represents a dash toward freedom which is a dream of 25 million North Koreans.’
She described North Korea as ‘a terrifying prison and the Kim’s are carrying out a vast massacre and it takes a miracle to survive there’.
Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, praised Ji-Hyeon-A and said what she described amounted to ‘crimes against humanity’
Ji-Hyeon-A also urged the Chinese government to stop sending North Koreans back to the regime and called on world leaders to fight for North Korean defectors and especially those who are repatriated.
The defector recited a poem called ‘Is anyone there?’ from a collection of poems she wrote.
‘I am scared, is anyone there? I’m here in hell, is anyone there? I scream and yell but no one opens the door. Is anyone there? Please listen to our moans and listen to our pain. Is anyone there? People are dying, my friend is dying.
‘I call out again and again but why don’t you answer. Is anyone there?
Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, praised Ji-Hyeon-A and said the crimes discussed ‘amount to crimes against humanity’.