N Koreans Seek Refuge In S Korea Embassy In Laos:Embassy -AFP
Friday March 28th, 2008 / 5h02
SEOUL (AFP)--Twelve North Korean asylum-seekers have forced their way into the South Korean embassy in Laos, the embassy said Friday. "Twelve North Korean defectors including 11 females and one male entered the embassy on Thursday," ambassador Park Jae-Hyun told Yonhap news agency. "We're going to respect what they want, in accordance with humanitarian principles and international standards," Park was quoted as saying. All are in good condition and under the embassy's protective custody, he said, without specifying whether they want to come to South Korea. Earlier, four international human rights groups helping the refugees reportedly said they want to travel to South Korea. The foreign ministry in Seoul refused to comment. An increasing number of North Koreans, who fled their impoverished hardline communist homeland to China, travel on to Southeast Asian countries. They risk forced repatriation if caught in China, which terms them illegal economic migrants. Some 12,250 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the vast majority of them in recent years. They have a constitutional right to citizenship here. Seoul prefers a low-key approach to the issue so as not to anger Pyongyang. North Korea lodged a strong protest in 2004 when Seoul airlifted about 460 North Koreans out of Vietnam in the biggest-ever mass defection.
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