North Korean defector’s decomposing remains found by Seoul police
South Korean authorities have launched an investigation after the decomposing remains of a North Korean defector were found in the capital Seoul last Wednesday.
The defector was a woman in her 40s who escaped to South Korea in 2002, according to police and South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
The woman had missed multiple rent payments and could not be reached, so the Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation – a public housing company – sent workers to visit her apartment, where they found her body, according to Seoul police.
Her body was severely decomposed, to an “almost skeleton status,” police said. Based on the winter clothes she wore, police suspect she has been dead for about a year – but more exact details are expected after an autopsy.
The Unification Ministry did not name her but said authorities had once touted her as an example of a resettlement success story.
From 2011 to 2017, the woman worked as a counselor at the ministry-run Korea Hana Foundation, helping other defectors resettle in the South, the ministry said.
South Korean authorities routinely monitor North Korean defectors and provide welfare checks during their resettlement process – but in 2019 the woman asked police not to extend their protection services, according to Seoul police.
The Unification Ministry also said the woman was not on its own watch list.
The police said they had submitted a request for investigation to the National Forensic Service.
An official from the Unification Ministry said the case was “very sad,” adding the ministry would re-examine the crisis management system for North Korean defectors, and work on areas that needed improvement.
South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare had previously warned there were “signs of a (welfare) crisis,” prompting local Seoul authorities to begin their own probe.
Defectors began entering South Korea in significant numbers around the turn of the century, most fleeing first over North Korea’s lengthy border with China.
Agencies