Category Archives: Resettling in Japan
10th year challenge
Everybody is well aware of the current situation all around the world. Because of today’s circumstances, we at LFNKR are, like so many other organizations, being seriously impacted. Our rescue activities have been drastically curtailed. Since the border between China and North Korea has been completely closed for over a year, rescue operations for North Korean defectors waiting in China have been indefinitely suspended. Meanwhile, however, we are delighted to report on the great success achieved by one of our North Korean defector couples. We were involved in their rescue and their resettlement in Japan. In the following article the wife tells about the couple’s experiences.
10th year challenge (by K. M.)
It feels like it was just yesterday that we escaped from North Korea and came to Japan, but it’s been 10 years now. Anyone over 40 will know this feeling – that the years have flown by.
Save North Korean Refugees Day 2020
LETTER OF PETITION
September 24, 2019 is the annual Save North Korean Refugees Day, organized by the North Korean Freedom Coalition. As a member of the Coalition, LFNKR has sent out Letters of Petition to the Chinese embassy and all the consulates in Japan, urging China’s president Xi Jinping to provide North Korean refugees with fair treatment according to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a document which China signed and ratified on September 24, 1982.
Sung Kook`s Challenges – A Far Journey
On December 14, 1959, a so-called “Repatriation Ship” set sail from North Niigata in Japan and headed for North Korea. A massive propaganda campaign had, for months, been touting a “Socialist Paradise on Earth,” and this ship was carrying the first of the 93,000 ethnic Korean residents of Japan and Japanese spouses in search of their dreams, their hopes, and even their misgivings about the unknown country where they planned to make their new home. Included among that number were 6,730 Japanese spouses and children.
Interview with a North Korean defector
In May of this year, a 17-year-old boy in Switzerland contacted LFNKR. He is, he said, working on his thesis about North Korea. He asked us if we could arrange for him to interview a North Korean defector. So, we forwarded his list of questions to Kim Su-hyong.
Mr. Kim, who escaped from North Korea in 2017, now lives in Japan. The following questions and answers are good, basic information about North Korea and the current situation there.
Another success story
We at LFNKR are extremely proud of Kim S. who graduated from a night school in March this year. He made it to Japan in 2017 after escaping from North Korea and surviving a journey filled with hazards and hardships.
We told you about him back in Sept. 2017. If you’d like to read the back-story, refer to: https://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2017/09/
When Kim S. arrived in Japan, he did not speak, read or write Japanese at all, but now …
Why she had to flee from North Korea
As part of its important activities, LFNKR has been supporting former North Korean defectors who come to Japan and resettle. Ms. Kim SH is one of the defectors whom LFNKR has helped to build up her new career in Japan. In her busy daily life, employed as a medical worker, she frequently provides LFNKR with utmost help in its activities, such as events related to North Korean human rights issue, often as a speaker describing what life is like in North Korea.
Another success story
In Japan right now, the cherry blossoms are at their peak as they usher in a new spring time. It’s the time of new beginnings.
Companies hire new employees in the spring, and the new school year starts in April.
Mother & son wait 16 years for reunion
We reported, back in September, the LFNKR rescue team had successfully brought four North Korean refugees out to safe havens. One of these is Mr. Kim, who turned 22 while at a temporary holding center in Thailand.
After completing all the legal procedures, he finally arrived in Japan on Dec. 8. Awaiting him at Haneda Airport, together with the LFNKR members, was his mother, who eagerly greeted him on his arrival.