Over 100 North Koreans have reportedly disappeared after being detained by the country’s secret police, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), while attempting to defect or for attempting to contact family members in South Korea, according to a recent report from the Seoul-based human rights organization Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG). This report, published on Thursday, sheds light on a series of patterns regarding the disappearance of North Korean citizens who attempted to flee the isolated country or communicate with relatives outside its borders.
The TJWG report’s findings, based on interviews with 62 North Korean defectors currently residing in South Korea, have unveiled concerning trends about the brutal treatment faced by citizens at the hands of the North Korean authorities and the country’s MSS, known for its oppressive and often violent tactics. The findings have stirred both regional and international concerns over human rights abuses in North Korea, sparking further calls for global accountability ahead of the upcoming United Nations Human Rights Council’s review on North Korea’s human rights record.
The practice of enforced disappearances is hardly new to North Korea, but the TJWG report provides some of the most specific details to date about these practices, focusing on 113 individuals identified in 66 cases of disappearance. This data is cataloged in an archive managed by TJWG in collaboration with other international organizations, offering insight into the methods by which the North Korean regime targets its citizens.
According to the report, of the 113 cases recorded, 80% of the individuals were arrested within North Korea, while the remaining 20% were detained while attempting to escape through neighboring China or Russia. About 30% of these cases occurred after Kim Jong Un’s ascension to power in late 2011, with disappearances continuing to rise as the leader has tightened border security and communication restrictions between North Korea and the outside world.
One of the most chilling findings of the report is the rationale behind these disappearances. Nearly 40% of the recorded cases involved individuals who were caught while attempting to defect from North Korea. Another 26% of the cases involved family members who were forced to take responsibility for the alleged “crimes” of their relatives. Almost 9% of these disappearances were connected to individuals who attempted to establish or maintain contact with family members living abroad, particularly in South Korea, considered by Pyongyang as a “hostile state.”
For North Koreans, contact with the outside world is considered not only a risky endeavor but also a crime punishable by severe consequences. Many of those who attempt to connect with their families abroad resort to using smuggled Chinese cell phones, which are often carefully hidden and accessed only under the cover of secrecy. However, even these precautions often fail to protect them from the vigilant surveillance of the MSS.
One escapee who defected to South Korea in 2018 recounted how his friend, residing in Hyesan—a city near the Chinese border—was detained by the MSS while trying to retrieve a hidden Chinese mobile phone. According to the defector, MSS agents discovered call records on the phone linking the individual to South Korea. The arrest soon followed, and the friend was rumored to have perished in detention, a fate that remains a tragic reminder of the risk North Koreans face simply for attempting to connect with loved ones abroad.
“Once the MSS finds call records with South Korea, they are considered serious offenses,” the defector stated in the report, further highlighting the precarious nature of such communication attempts.
The report underscores the Kim regime’s intensified border security measures over the past decade, especially following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Pyongyang cited as a reason to “seal” its borders even further. This effectively severed one of the only possible escape routes for North Koreans through China, which has historically served as a common transit route for defectors seeking refuge in third countries, including South Korea.
The Kim regime has also reportedly augmented its surveillance capabilities, employing drones and advanced monitoring equipment along the Chinese and Russian borders to intercept those attempting to flee. In many cases, North Koreans are detained before they even leave the country’s borders. Those who do manage to reach China are often at risk of being repatriated by Chinese authorities, who regard defectors as “illegal economic migrants” rather than refugees seeking asylum. Once repatriated, defectors are frequently subjected to harsh interrogations, detention in brutal labor camps, and, in extreme cases, execution.
According to TJWG, the North Korean government’s handling of defectors and communication offenses not only constitutes a severe violation of human rights within its borders but also extends to transnational crimes that involve countries like China and Russia. The MSS’s collaboration with Chinese and Russian authorities in detaining or repatriating defectors is a longstanding practice that has only grown in recent years. As Kang Jeong-hyun, director of the TJWG project, emphasized, “The report was intended to underscore enforced disappearances committed by the Kim regime as transnational crimes also involving China and Russia.”
International organizations have consistently condemned this cooperation between North Korea and its allies, arguing that it contravenes international standards on refugee protection and human rights. China, however, has staunchly denied the existence of North Korean defectors within its borders, maintaining that these individuals are economic migrants rather than asylum seekers. This stance has drawn widespread criticism from human rights advocates, who argue that such policies endanger the lives of defectors by forcing them back into hostile environments where they are likely to face severe punishment.
The TJWG report’s release comes just days before the United Nations Human Rights Council is scheduled to conduct its Universal Periodic Review of North Korea’s human rights practices. This quinquennial review is expected to draw international attention to the North Korean regime’s longstanding abuses, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and the torture of detainees. The UN has previously estimated that approximately 200,000 North Koreans are held in detention facilities across the country, many of which operate as prison camps where detainees endure deplorable conditions.
In 2014, a UN Commission of Inquiry report detailed the “unspeakable atrocities” inflicted upon inmates, including forced labor, starvation, torture, rape, and extrajudicial executions. The current TJWG report reaffirms many of these findings, adding fresh data and case studies to the growing body of evidence implicating the North Korean regime in widespread human rights abuses.
Despite mounting international pressure, North Korea has repeatedly rebuffed allegations of human rights abuses, calling them Western propaganda designed to destabilize the country’s image. In a statement released earlier this month, the North’s Korea Association for Human Rights Studies rejected UN allegations of forced disappearances and other human rights violations as “fabrications” and part of a Western conspiracy to malign Pyongyang’s reputation.
For North Korean citizens, these enforced disappearances serve as a powerful warning against defiance of the regime. While tens of thousands of North Koreans have managed to defect since the end of the Korean War in 1953, many of those who attempt to escape today face nearly insurmountable odds. Those apprehended are often subjected to extreme interrogation techniques, designed to extract information on potential co-conspirators or family members still residing within North Korea.
In addition to defectors, family members of escapees are often considered guilty by association, forced to pay a heavy price for their relatives’ perceived disloyalty. This “guilt by association” policy has led to cases where entire families are detained or disappear in retaliation for a single member’s attempted escape. These detentions not only isolate North Koreans from their loved ones but also serve to reinforce a culture of fear and obedience, as individuals are often too afraid to communicate with anyone who has defected.
