21 N.Koreans Found Adrift Off South
A group of 21 North Koreans including women and children have been found adrift off the South's western coast, military authorities said Saturday.
A five-ton wooden boat with the group on board was spotted by sailors on a South Korean Navy vessel in the Yellow Sea on Sunday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a press statement. Earlier reports said they were found Tuesday.
The boat was drifting 26 miles west of Daechong Island in the Yellow Sea, 21 miles south of the Northern Limit Line, a disputed sea border between the two Koreas.
The navy asked a nearby coastguard patrol boat to check on the craft, which had no lights on and was among Chinese fishing vessels.
After being rescued, the North Koreans immediately expressed a desire to defect to the South, a coastguard spokesman said.
They were taken to the western port of Incheon on board the patrol boat, with their own vessel being towed in, the spokesman added.
"They have been under interrogation by relevant authorities," the military statement said.
It was not immediately clear why the navy and coastguard withheld the news from the public for six days.
Hundreds of North Koreans flee hunger and repression in their isolated communist homeland each year.
They normally escape on foot to China, hide out and then travel to a third country to seek resettlement in South Korea.
China normally returns fugitives from the North even though they could face harsh punishment in their homeland for escaping. The policy is denounced by rights groups, who say they should get refugee status and 5,000 are repatriated each year.
Seoul's policy is to accept all North Koreans who wish to stay in the South, while repatriating those who stray across the sea border by accident.
In February, a boatload of 31 North Koreans arrived in South Korea, sparking weeks of acrimony. That boat drifted across the Yellow Sea border in thick fog, possibly unintentionally.
Seoul returned 27 of the 31 people on board but refused to hand over the other four, saying they had freely chosen to stay in the South.
Saturday's announcement represented the fourth occasion this year that North Korean defectors have reached South Korea by crossing the Yellow Sea frontier.
Nine North Korean refugees, including three children, were picked up by Japan's coastguard in September after leaving the North's east coast. They arrived in South Korea last month.
Two North Koreans were also admitted to the South last month after they were found adrift in a small boat off its east coast.
Source: Agence France Presse
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