North Korean refugees tour New York City
By Josh Robin
Friday, July 21, 2017 at 10:02 PM EDT
They are refugees from perhaps the most isolated nation on Earth:
North Korea. And for the last few days, these 27 kids and adults have been touring
New York City, savoring something they once lacked: freedom. Josh Robin filed
the following report.
The children list their favorite things about their trip.
"Yesterday, we went to Six Flags," said one.
A trip to a cave, says another.
"I really like America," one child said through an interpreter. "If people want to
stay home, they can. If they want to go outside, they are free to go outside."
Freedom, after childhoods utterly lacking it.
Under penalty of death, they, or their mothers, escaped from the
poverty and repression of North Korea, only to find brutality again across the
Chinese border.
Mothers and children were abused. Some children are from unwanted
marriages.
A reverend brought them to South Korea. He hopes a brief time
in another vibrant democracy leaves lifelong lessons.
"It's a big help and challenge for them to come to America
because they had only known the narrow perspective of North Korea," Rev. Ki-won Chun of the Durihana Association said through an
interpreter.
The totalitarian nuclear-armed state recently fired a missile
capable of reaching Alaska. All U.S. military options carry major risks.
But the external threat often overshadows North Korea's treatment
of its own people.
Families of escapees can be killed, so we are keeping their identities
hidden.
"The military has a lot of power," said one North Korean
refugee. "If they demand food from us but we don't have anything to offer
them, they stone us or use weapons on us."
One brother and sister were reunited after more than a year apart.
"I left North Korea because there is no freedom there," said one North Korean refugee.
"Freedom is being able to do what you want to do, being able
to go where you want to go and being able to say what you want to say," said another.
A freedom leading Assemblyman Ron Kim to lament what's become
of the open door tradition in this country.
"To go in a whole different new direction, I think that would
be devastating," Kim said.
The reverend says he's saved more than 1,100 people, leading to
his imprisonment in China.
He says it started when he saw the corpse of a would-be defector
in a river bordering China.
"I have been witnessing women being sold into slavery since
1995, dying while crossing the border, children who are being abused and beaten
by adults. I still see this happening," Chun said through an interpreter.
This is the seventh group that the reverend has taken. He says
he will be back with his eighth next summer.