[USFK Forums] Family of POW escapes North Korea [Korea Herald]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Saturday, April 1, 2006

Family of POW escapes North Korea

The Korea Herald, Saturday, April 1, 2006

Three generations from the family of a South Korean soldier held as a prisoner of war in North Korea have successfully defected to the South. The remaining family members arrived safely at Incheon International Airport yesterday.

This is only the second time that the entire family of a former prisoner of war has escaped from the North since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Lee Ki-chun, a former South Korean prisoner of war, and his six family members have separately defected since 2004 in four different attempts. The three who arrived yesterday were Lee`s daughter and grandsons.

The 75-year-old Lee was captured in 1950 by Chinese troops while fighting as a member of KATUSA, or Korean soldiers attached to the U.S. Army.

In June 2004, the elder Lee decided to defect after he confirmed family members left behind in South Korea were still alive. With the help of a "defection aide" at the border of North Korea and China, Lee managed to contact his family in the South via mobile phone, a family he hadn`t seen in the 54 years since his capture.

After making two failed attempts to escape, he finally succeeded in defecting from the communist country in November 2004. After establishing himself in the South, Lee contacted his wife Kim in the North. Kim managed to follow the same route as her husband and arrived in South Korea in June.

Last September, his second daughter and her husband successfully made the journey. The couple`s 3-year-old son, however, had to be left behind in the care of a relative of the husband. The baby and Lee`s second daughter managed to cross into China in December.

In January, another of Lee`s daughters, Lee Bok-hee, 33, fled the Stalinist country with her 2-year-old son. In China, she was reunited her 3-year-old nephew, where they sought refugee at South Korean consulate. After being investigated by Chinese security authorities they were eventually given permission to travel to South Korea, ending the family`s 17-month struggle for freedom.

(davidpooh@heraldm.com)


By Jin Dae-woong


2006.04.01