North Korean defector’s remains found in South Korea

The remains of a North Korean defector have been found in South Korea. Seoul police said a public housing company last week sent workers to visit the woman’s apartment after she had missed multiple rent payments, and could not be contacted.

The workers found the woman’s decomposing remains in her apartment. The body of the woman, who was in her 40s, had decomposed to an “almost skeleton status,” according to police. The Unification Ministry has not released the woman’s name but said authorities had once described her as an example of a resettlement success story.

Back in 2019, the woman asked police not to extend their protection services, according to Seoul police. South Korean authorities regularly provide welfare checks to defectors from the north.

An official from the Unification Ministry said the ministry would re-examine crisis management for North Korean defectors. The official said the ministry would work on improvements, and that the case was “very sad”, CNN reported.

A notorious authoritarian dictatorship, North Korea is renowned for its human rights abuses. In 2020, Human Rights Watch described the country as one of the most repressive in the world. North Korea’s government punishes its critics with torture, starvation, sleep deprivation, and forced labour.

According to numbers from the Unification Ministry, more than 33,000 people have defected from North to South Korea since 1998.