North Korea on Wednesday accused the South of having lured, kidnapped and brainwashed nine young North Korean refugees who were recently forcibly repatriated from Laos to Pyongyang via China.Their case has attracted international concern and condemnation, with the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
and human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
groups warning the North that it would be held responsible for the safety of the refugees -- aged between 14 and 18.
But a lengthy statement attributed to a front man for the central committee of the North Korean Red Thingy Society said the nine were among many people lured away from the country by South Korean government-sponsored human traffickers, posing as religious activists.
"It is an unprecedented and heinous class-A crime -- luring our young children, confining and brainwashing them against their will and trying to drag them to the South," the front man said.
The nine refugees were tossed in the clink
Please don't kill me!
in Laos on May 10 for illegal entry and were eventually returned to North Korea via China.
The Lao foreign ministry said two South Koreans accompanying the refugees were placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
for alleged human trafficking and later handed over to the South's embassy in Vientiane.
The foreign ministry in Seoul rejected the "trafficker" label and said the two were acting as "guides" and trying to secure the refugees' permanent escape from the North.
Most North Korean refugees begin their journey by crossing into China, where they face repatriation if caught.
They then try to make it to a third country -- Thailand is the most popular choice -- from where they generally seek permission to resettle in South Korea.
Those who are caught and deported back to the North face severe punishment including a jail term at a labor camp, defectors in Seoul and rights groups say.
But Wednesday's statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency said the nine "kidnapped" returnees were being well-cared for.
"These young children who were luckily brought back to their beloved homeland... are stabilising and will flourish under the care of the nation to fulfil their hopes and future," the front man said.