Only 67 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea in 2022

ANKARA (AA) - The number of defectors from North Korea declined significantly in 2022 as only 67 were able to cross the border and reach South Korea during the year, local media reported on Tuesday.

Citing the South Korean Unification Ministry’s data since 2010, NK News reported that every year hundreds or thousands of defectors arrive in Seoul, however, in 2022 only 67 people arrived, marking the second-lowest record.

Some 63 defectors reached South Korea in 2021.

Human rights activists believed that strict COVID-19 restrictions in China and North Korea probably caused the number to decline.

“The low number of defectors over the past three years has significantly reduced the level of information the outside world has about what’s happening inside the DPRK,” Hanna Song of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights told NK News.

Some 34,000 defectors arrived in South Korea during the last decade and 70% of them were women.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid