By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

Twenty nine people believed to be North Korean defectors stormed into a Japanese school in Beijing, sources in Beijing and Seoul said Wednesday.

The people, who sought asylum in the school, were claiming to be North Koreans escaping their poverty-stricken Stalinist homeland.

``We received a brief report from our mission in Beijing in the morning,’’ a senior official at South Korea’s Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry said on condition of anonymity. ``We have to find out more about the situation.’’

Japanese officials were also trying to determine the identities of those who entered the school, before deciding on their fate based on the results of their investigations.

A source in Beijing said the area was ``quiet’’ and the asylum seekers have apparently been taken from the school building to another location.

The refugees broke into the school as classes began for the first day of the second trimester following the end of summer vacation. It was not immediately known whether the latest case involved a Japanese or South Korean civic group working for the North Korean refugees in China.

Though there have been several cases in which North Koreans sought asylums in foreign embassies or schools, it is the single largest case, with of a total of 29 refugees, to have stormed a school at once. In February last year, four North Koreans jumped over fence into the Japanese school in Beijing and eventually came to South Korea via Singapore.

The Seoul diplomat reaffirmed South Korea’s policy on defectors, saying the government would accept all North Korean refugees.

``I believe they will come to South Korea without fail if they are truly North Korean asylum seekers and want to come to this country,’’ the official said.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr