He Became Obsessed as a Boy at Fleeing North Korea

When a defector fled from North Korea earlier this year with his family, it was the fulfillment of a scheme he'd been planning for seven months. Now, the BBC has the story of what it describes as a "seemingly impossible escape," with as many dangerous obstacles as a Mission: Impossible flick. The UK broadcaster notes that before the pandemic, defection to South Korea wasn't uncommon, but after COVID hit, the North shut down its borders and trade, and defection "virtually ceased." That didn't deter the man known only as Mr. Kim, who says he and his pregnant wife, his mom, his brother's family, and an urn holding his father's ashes waited until one particularly stormy night (to make it harder to be detected) to make their move.

Kim says after sedating his brother's kids with sleeping pills, the family began its arduous journey, which included walking through a minefield to get to their escape boat, where they placed the children in grain sacks to hide them in case they got stopped. Kim had long fantasized about escaping, a dream born when he was a child living near the border with the South. Kim "became captivated by a country where people were free," the BBC notes. He'd wanted to flee "hundreds of times," but he wouldn't leave without his family. He finally convinced them to join him. The BBC notes it hasn't been able to independently verify all of Kim's revelations, but it adds that "much of the detail tallies with what we have been told by other sources." More here from Kim on his family's incredible escape, the North's super-strict COVID rules, and the dire conditions there. (More North Korea stories.)