North Korea defector recollects living with rats and dead bodies on railway platforms

#chongjin #famine #northkorea #laborcamp Ji-hyun Park has managed to defect from North Korea and has, now, revealed the deep dark secrets that lurk in the North Korean labor camps as revealed in dailymail.co.uk dated 6 February 2015. As per her narrative, she was forced to clean out filthy toilets with her bare hands and the people ate rats in a desperate attempt to survive. The worst part is that people are all hungry and the stocks of rats, snakes or wild plants have practically vanished.
Ji-hyun Park had spent a year inside the Chongjin labor camp which is one of the notorious detention camps of North Korea after she was deported from China as an 'economic defector' - she had fled to China to escape starving to death. In her words, the whole of North Korea is one big prison.
While recalling the North Korean famine of the late 1990s, she said that plenty of people died between 1996 and 1998 and the dead bodies would be littered on the railway platforms.
Ji-hyun first left North Korea during the famine of the 1990s that ravaged the country and it is estimated that over four million people died in the famine. At that time, the country was ruled by Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un, the present ruler.
The woman Ji-hyun now lives in Manchester with her partner and four children and she is gradually rebuilding her life after her experiences in the labor camps.

Another interesting blog - Citizen Journalist

Another interesting blog - Ramblings