By Yoo Dong-ho
Staff Reporter

About 230 North Korean defectors on Tuesday arrived here from a Southeast Asian country in the largest-ever single group of defectors to reach South Korea.

A chartered Asiana Airlines flight carrying North Koreans fleeing their communist homeland landed at a military airport, just south of Seoul, around 9 a.m. amid tight security.


They were among 450 North Koreans to be airlifted to South Korea this week, with another batch of some 220 refugees from the same country to be flown here this morning, according to diplomatic sources.
The biggest one-day influx of defectors from the Communist neighbor came amid mounting concerns that North Korea, upset by the mass defection of its people, may boycott the Aug. 3-6 inter-Korean Cabinet-level meeting in Seoul.

Journalists were kept away from the tightly guarded airport. The 230 North Koreans were taken to a local bank-owned facility near Seoul for questioning and debriefing.

After a month, the North Koreans will be moved to resettlement facilities for an eight-week program providing housing and training to help them adjust to life in capitalist South Korea.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said that the government will soon come up with comprehensive measures to deal with a mass influx of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea. ``We need to review and upgrade the overall defectors-handling policy,’’ he said, adding, ``I expect the number of North Korean defectors in South Korea will exceed 10,000 in just a few years.’’ Currently, North Korean defectors here number more than 5,000.

Hanawon, the state-run re-education center for the North’s defectors, can accommodate 400 defectors at a time and currently only about an additional 100 can be allowed in. The government is seeking ways to send the rest of the North Koreans to local government bodies.

The trickle of defectors to the South has grown into a steady stream in recent years as more North Koreans flee hunger and repression in their communist homeland, mostly heading across the long border with China before heading to other countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

China, an ideological ally of Pyongyang, is obligated by treaty to return North Koreans to their homeland, though Beijing is allowing thousands to live illegally in its northeast.

Official figures show that 1,285 North Koreans defected to South Korea in 2003, up from 1,140 in 2002 and 583 in 2001. In the first six months of the year, 760 North Koreans were allowed to come to South Korea, mostly via China.

yoodh@koreatimes.co.kr