THAILAND: Thai police detain 175 North Koreans after raid on house in Bangkok

Thai police said on Wednesday (August 23) they had detained 175 North Koreans in a raid on a house in a Bangkok suburb after neighbours became suspicious of the number of people in it. This is the single biggest detention of North Koreans in the country. The North Koreans, mostly women and children, had entered Thailand illegally and were staying in the house with 16 compatriots who had travel documents from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, police said. The 16 had been due to leave on Tuesday (August 22) night for South Korea, the favoured destination for most of the trickle of refugees leaving the hard-line communist North, they said. "They're North Koreans. They're from Korea. They came through China down to Burma to Thailand. At the Northern part of Thailand, Mai Sai, Chiang Rai. (Reporter: Where are they headed for?) They are headed for Krun Thep, Bangkok, to wait to go to a third country. (Reporter: Is the third country South Korea?) America, South Korea, whatever," said Suwat Tumrongsiskul, Thailand's immigration police chief told reporters. But the UNHCR had their documents, which police insisted on seeing, so the 16 missed their flight as they were kept at Immigration Police headquarters. Among the 175, there were 128 women, 12 children under the age of 15 and 45 men, police said. There was no immediate explanation on how so many North Koreans had managed to cram into a house with at least 10 bedrooms without Thai police being aware of them. Nor was it known immediately how long they had been there. Most North Koreans who manage to leave their tightly controlled country do so across the border into a region of northeast China populated by ethnic Koreans. Some have managed to cross China to Thailand and Vietnam in recent years and most are sent on to Seoul, often without publicity to avoid upsetting the North Korean government.

ITN Source | August 23, 2006

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