List of North Korean defectors in South Korea

This is a List of North Korean defectors in South Korea. North Korean defectors typically received a great deal of media attention in the past; however, as their numbers increase, this is becoming less common. Furthermore, the vast majority of defectors from North Korea are unable to proceed to the South; they instead end up settling illegally, typically in northeast China or the Russian Far East.

The month, day, and year, when known, refer to when the defector(s) arrived in South Korea. This list can never be exhaustive so long as the threat exists of retaliation by the North Korean government against "traitors" to the regime. Many defectors do not reveal their true identity and give interviews using a pseudonym.

By decade

1950s

* On 21 September 1953, Air force senior lieutenant No Kum-Sok (age 21) flew his MiG-15 to the South. Since this fighter plane was then the best the Communist bloc had, No's defection was considered an intelligence bonanza, and he was awarded the then exorbitant sum of $100,000 and the right to reside in the United States.
* On 21 June 1955, the air force officers and friends Lee Un-yong and Lee Eun-seong flew a Yak-18 across the border and landed at the then-major airport on Yeouido in Seoul.

1960s

*1960
** Chong Nak-hyok – air force lieutenant flew his MiG-15 to the South.

*1968
** Kim Shin-jo – on January 21, one of a 31-person team sent to the South to assassinate then-President Park Chung Hee. This led to retaliation in what is known as the Silmido incident. After his life was spared, he has become a missionary and has written books on how he found inner peace in Christianity.

1970s

*1970
** Pak Sun-kuk – air force major was ordered to return a recently repaired MiG-15 from a repair workshop to Wonsan, Kangwon Province. He used this opportunity to fly it to the South, crash-landing in Gangwon Province, South Korea.

1980s

* 1982
** Ri Han-yong - nephew of Kim Jong-il; shot to death in 1997 in Gyeonggi-do by unknown assailants widely suspected to be North Korean agents, in what was variously speculated to be an attempt to silence him after his publication of a tell-all book about Kim Jong-il's private life, revenge for his mother Song Hye-rang's defection a year earlier, or a warning to fellow defector Hwang Jang-yop.cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E6D7103FF934A25751C0A961958260|publisher=The New York Times|title=Korean shooting is casting cloud on signs of thaw|last=Pollack|first=Andrew|date=1997-02-17|accessdate=2007-10-30]

* 1983
** Lee Ung-pyong – air force captain in the North Korea air force, used a training exercise to defect and landed his MiG-19 at a South Korean airfield. According to the then common practice, he received a commission in the South Korean Army, eventually becoming a colonel. He received a reward of ₩1.2 billion.

* 1987
** Kang Chol-hwan – imprisoned with his family at age 10 for his grandfather's alleged political crime. He and a friend fled across the Yalu river into China when he found out he was being investigated for listening to South Korean radio broadcasts.

1990s

* 1994
** Jang Kil-soo – North Korean movie director who defected to the South and has become a successful director there.
** Kim Hyung-dok – September – successfully arrived in Seoul after two years trying to secure passage to the South. Two years later, he was arrested trying to flee back to the North.

* 1995
** Lee Soon Ok – December – high-ranking party member from northern province defected with son to the South via China and Hong Kong after suffering seven years in a political prisoner camp at Kaechon. She has since written her memoirs, "Eyes of the Tailless Animals", and testified before the United States House of Representatives and the United Nations.
** Choi Ju-hwal – a former North Korean colonel and chief of the joint venture section of Yung-Seong Trading Company under the Ministry of the People's Army.

* 1996
** Lee Chul-su – May 23 – air force captain Lee Chul-su defected to South Korea by flying across the border in an aging MiG-19 fighter. He was awarded ₩480 million (the equivalent of $560,000 then).
** May 31 – scientist Chung Kab-ryol and writer Chang Hae-song arrived at Seoul's Kimpo Airport from Hong Kong.

* 1997
** Hwang Jang-yop – February 12 – former secretary of the North Korean Workers Party and his aide Kim Dok-hong come to the Consular Section of the Republic of Korea Embassy in Beijing seeking political asylum. They arrived in Seoul on April 20 after staying in the South Korean Consulate in Beijing for 34 days and in the Philippines for 33 days. Hwang is the highest ranking North Korean official to defect.
** Kim Kil-son – August 1997 – worked in a publications department of North Korea’s Number 2 Research Center prior to defection.
** Kim Song Gun – fearing death from starvation, left his home in the northern city of Chongjin, North Hamgyeong Province.
** Kim Kun Il – left the North after his father died from hunger.

* 1998
** December 31 – 33 year-old factory worker who had been living in hiding since leaving the North in August 1996 arrived in Seoul seeking asylum.

* 1999
** Jang Gil-su – fled North Korea at age 15, and became famous in South Korea following publication there and in the U.S. media of his chilling crayon drawings, which depict horrific abuses by North Korean authorities against North Korean civilians.
** Pak Do-ik – former writer of propaganda and theater scripts praising the North's regime. He crossed the Tumen River into China where he encountered South Korean intelligence agents, who were interested in Pak's knowledge of the regime's hierarchy. After they interrogated him for months, they helped him defect to the South.
** Suh Jae-seok – defected to South Korea by crossing the Tumen River with his 2-year-old son carried in a backpack. Once married to another defector, Park Kyeong-shim, in South Korea. On 27 April 2006, Suh was granted refugee status in the United States after claiming that he and his son suffered from brutal discrimination in South Korea, an accusation that the Seoul government vehemently denied.

2000s

* 2002
** July 31 – A North Korean, identified as Kim, sailed into South Korean waters in a 0.3 ton wood fishing boat off Ganghwa Island on the west coast and expressed his wish to defect.
** October – Kyong Won-ha – father of North Korea's nuclear program, defected to the West, taking with him many of the secrets of the atomic program pioneered since 1984. He was one of 20 scientists and military officers who were smuggled out of North Korea during the alleged Operation Weasel.
** Son Jong Hoon – arrived in South Korea in 2002. His older brother, Son Jong Nam is currently sentenced to death in North Korea on charges of spying for South Korea. Jong Nam fled to China in 1998, became a Christian working for an evangelical mission, was arrested by Chinese police, and repatriated to the North in 2001, where he was imprisoned for three years for religious activities. Jong Nam later returned to China to meet his younger brother but he returned to North Korea, where he was arrested by North Korean officials in January 2006.

* 2004
** May 7 – A family of four North Koreans arrived in South Korea from China via a third country after successful negotiations between the governments of South Korea and China following their arrest after trying to enter the South Korean consulate in Qingdao, China on April 19.
** July 27 – 230 North Korean refugees airlifted from Vietnam arrived at Sanguine (Seongnam) military airport aboard a chartered Asiana Airlines flight.
** July 28 – 220 more North Korean refugees arrive at Incheon International Airport from Vietnam, bringing 450 total defectors, or the largest single group of defectors from North Korea, to South Korea.

* 2005
** June 17 –
*** Lee Yong-su – soldier in an artillery battalion of the North Korean army in P'yŏnggang county. Cut barbed-wire fences in the 2.5-mile-wide demilitarized zone.
*** two fishermen (one male and one female) crossed the border in the Yellow Sea aboard their small motorless vessel.
** June 26 – Hong family – father (42 y.o.), wife (39), and their son crossed the border in the Yellow Sea.

Defectors not yet sorted

* Lee Chong-guk, used to be a cook at Chongryu-gwan, the most famous of all Pyongyang restaurants, has established his own restaurant chain in the South.
* Sin Yong-hui, dancer in the Mansudae troupe (the North Korean equivalent of the Bolshoi Theatre), became a moderately successful actress.
* Yo Man-chol, a former captain in the Ministry of Public Safety (the North Korean police), opened a small restaurant in Seoul.
* Chang Hae-song, a former North Korean playwright and journalist, who once specialized in radio dramas about the sufferings of the South Korean people, nowadays works in the Institute of Unification Policy and writes about North Korea. His daughter also attracted some attention when she posted an exceptional score in the South Korean version of the scholastic aptitude test.
* Park Young Ae – runs a restaurant in the South.

References