Escaping North Korea

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0:56A decade ago, I travelled with North Korean defectors on the run. They crossed over into China from North Korea during the dead of night, over a frozen river that borders the country. Desperate to reach South Korea, they travelled across China, risking all to reunite with family members who defected years earlier. I documented this journey. They faced almost certain death if caught.

1:29This is a documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Danny Vincent, the BBC's correspondent in Hong Kong. And in this episode of Heart and Soul, which explores personal approaches to spirituality from around the world, I'm meeting Christian North Korean defectors.

1:54This is a country for the people. North Korea is not a country for the people. In North Korea, they talk about the people. But in reality, they take advantage of the people. We didn't know the difference. Ah, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un.

2:21The road is almost like a runway at an airport. So many sparkling lights. It's amazing. It's so amazing.

2:43Religion in North Korea is hard to measure. North Korea is considered one of the most secretive and repressive countries on earth. Officially, it's an atheist state. The regime sees religion as a threat to its control. Instead, North Koreans are expected to show devotion to the ruling Kim family, who are seen as godlike. A small number of Christians are believed to practice in secret, but entire families can be sent to labour camps for even practicing religion. Even a Bible can lead to detention or death.

3:25In 2014, I first met Miss Park, an elderly housewife, with her son in a Chinese North Korean border town. The pair defected from North Korea under the cover of darkness. As they crossed over into China, they held poison and opium in their teeth. If caught, they would swallow the poison. They'd rather die than return to North Korea, where they'd face prison camps or execution.

3:56When I met Mrs Park, her feet were already injured from frostbite after two nights in the freezing conditions in the mountains. She walked with a walking stick and was desperate for medical care. Here is audio I recorded at the time.

4:18We kept it in the mouth like this. We held it between our teeth. If we were captured and can't move our hands, we could still chew and swallow it. The river was frozen solid, but we just crossed safely. We went over in about five minutes. Their journey was far from over. They were stranded in the mountains.

4:50It's been 10 years since I last saw Mrs Park. She's now in her 70s. She lives with her son in a small apartment in the South Korean capital, Seoul. She looks settled into her new life in the South, but is carrying scars from the past. She caught frostbite in the Chinese mountains and didn't recover. All of her toes have been amputated.

5:18One of the things she still keeps from her life in the North is the love of music. She plays a few notes from a piano that she keeps in the corner of her apartment. As a child in North Korea, Mrs Park was one of the few North Koreans to have performed in front of the then leader of the country, Kim Il-sung. She recalls how the image of Kim changed from a political leader to becoming godlike in the eyes of North Koreans.

5:56At that time, he was called the Prime Minister. Then from 1961 to 1963, they began to idolize Kim Il-sung. After that, the children were indoctrinated. But after that, we had to call Kim Il-sung father. They attached the word father to his name, so children would have to call him father. Then for adults, they had to call him the great leader. From then on, great had to be added before leader, so we would become great leader. The honorific was added and the North Korean people were not allowed to use the word great again. The word great could only be used to describe Kim Il-sung and his family.

7:01As a Christian today, she sees comparisons of the leaders in North Korea and Christianity. So Kim Il-sung is acting like God. He knows Christianity well, so he's using the Bible to do it. When I came to South Korea and started attending church and reading the Bible, I realized that Kim Il-sung was imitating God, acting like a God on earth. That's why the North Korean government is avoiding the Bible. In our neighborhood, there was an old lady who lived a bit far from our house. She seemed to be a Christian, though we didn't know for sure. My father didn't even want to know about it. He kept saying to not look at things that the North Korean government had banned and to leave as instructed in North Korea.

7:56At home, my father said there was no God. I had only read about God once or twice in books. So I was someone who had no interest in God. But after defecting from North Korea, I endured a lot of suffering.

8:19She recalls her journey through China.

8:25I think God helped. I didn't know it back then, but now, thinking about it, I feel like God truly saved me when I was trying to come over. Back then, I didn't believe it was God, and I thought it was my ancestors who had helped me. But when I was shivering in the mountains because I was desperate, I prayed, Mountain Spirit, please help me. And I prayed to my deceased father, Father, please help me. Please help me get to my father's hometown. I prayed like this, God must have laughed. You fool, where is the Mountain Spirit? You should be looking for me. Okay, I will save you. It seems like that's what God said and then saved me.

9:18Looking back now, I didn't realize it at the time, but I came here without ever imagining I would face such hardships. Despite that, such hardship was what brought me to this point. Through these, I've come to understand God more clearly now.

9:42They travelled by car, bus and foot, climbing mountains to smuggle themselves out of China to reunite with their family members.

9:55That kind of cold, I could only think that I would freeze to death. I couldn't imagine surviving it. But now that I think about it, it was truly God's help. Scientifically speaking, I should have frozen to death. With temperatures going down to minus 30 degrees, there was frost forming on my body because I was freezing. The temperature was plummeting, and scientifically speaking, I should have frozen to death. But after attending church for 10 years, I want to say that God helped me. People might think I'm crazy for saying this, but I keep feeling that way. I keep feeling that God helped me.

10:49Mrs. Park and her son eventually found their way to a village and were helped by the Chinese underground Christian church. They were suffering from severe frostbite from their time stranded in the mountains.

11:07When it got deeper into the night, it seemed the animals could smell human scent. The wolves were howling like, It felt like a wolf was always right behind us, and so we just had to wander in fear. I started thinking about dying than living. We saw paw prints in the snow, like bear prints or tiger prints. It was large as saucepan leads. I told my son to go ahead since it seemed like we would both die. But he hugged me tightly and cried, asking how he could leave me alone in such a desolate place with animal tracks. How could he leave me in this remote place? And so he just cried and cried. With tears falling down his face, he said, If you die, I die.

12:04And if we leave, we both leave together. He asked, Mom, how can I leave you here? I am your son. He carried me gently and set off. Even though we both were starving and struggling, a young man is still a young man, even at 30 years old. And he carried me even though we were both suffering, so I endured it. At the time, I didn't know it and I just thought we survived because we were lucky. They travelled by car, bus and foot, climbing mountains to smuggle themselves out of China to reunite with their family members. We couldn't eat and we were freezing, so the only thing to eat was snow. There was no water to drink or eat, so we didn't have water.

12:59We found the village by following a ditch, because there was some water there. I took a sieve of water there and came down. I really couldn't see ahead, so a person gets dizzy in moments like that. Because I was starving and freezing, it was really tough. I guess it's because I was 60, so it was even harder to endure. It was in the mountains when Mrs Park found her faith.

13:34They successfully reunited with their family members that defected to the south years earlier. I saw the emotional reunion 10 years ago.

13:48The number of North Korean defectors escaping the country has fallen rapidly. By some estimates, as few as 20 North Koreans have made it to the South since the start of the pandemic. Human rights groups say the North Korean leadership has intensified ideological control and has a shoot-to-kill policy at the border.

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15:12I'm Danny Vincent, and for this episode of Heart and Soul, I'm in South Korea, spending time with North Korean Christian defectors.

15:26I've come to a church with Mrs Park, a North Korean defector I first met a decade ago in China.

15:38The sound of hymns fill the room.

15:48Mrs Park sits quietly praying. After the service, I'm taken to a North Korean study group. There are young North Korean defectors sitting in the corner. The older defectors sit at the front.

16:08A pastor prays, and members of the congregation give their testimonies. you can feel a sense of community and belonging. Many defectors still seem fragile.

16:27At the end of the service, a frail woman approaches my producer. She's a North Korean defector who gave a testimony during the service. She's worried that her voice may be recognised in this story when broadcast. She asked for her voice to be removed from this report.

16:52Many North Koreans in the South are living in fear. They're drawn together in the church. They worry that their words in South Korea could lead to punishment for their loved ones in the North. It's a reminder of the trauma many live with. Another lady approaches us. She's emotional and keen to share. Her name is Mrs. Kwong. She invites us to her home.

17:26Growing up in North Korea, Mrs. Kwong watched neighbours defect across the river to China. She saw public executions as a schoolchild and often went without food. When she decided to leave North Korea, she didn't tell a soul. She's haunted by her past, living with a type of survivor's guilt.

17:55When I defected from North Korea, I came to South Korea and started living here. I thought I had no regrets. I thought that no one would care about my defection, that no one would be affected, and that no one would even know about it. That's what I thought, but 13 years after I defected, my mother also came over. I didn't tell her I was defecting, but after she came over, she said it was like I went missing since I hadn't told her I was defecting. Since I was missing, the secret police were looking for me. In the midst of all this, during the process of bringing me to China, the two women who had guided me from North Korea were killed.

18:40They were like sisters. The Order sister was accused of human trafficking for guiding me to China and was publicly executed.

18:54Emotional, she reads from her Bible.

19:06Like many North Koreans, her journey into Christianity began in China, in an underground church.