The Ministry of Unification (MoU) on Tuesday confirmed a story from New Focus International published yesterday that more North Korean restaurant workers are in the process of defecting to the South.
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In April, 12 female North Korean staff and one North Korean male manager who had worked at a North Korean-run restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo defected to South Korea, marking the biggest group defection since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011.
He urged North Korea to halt making threats and waging provocations and display its commitment to denuclearize with specific actions.
Last month, a group of 13 North Koreans who had worked at a restaurant in the Chinese eastern port city of Ningbo defected to Seoul en masse amid tougher worldwide sanctions.
It’s the second known group escapes by North Korean restaurant workers dispatched overseas in recent weeks.
The exact number of defectors, details of where they worked and how they left China are not clear.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said that the workers had “broken away”, but refused to comment further.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the North Koreans had worked at a restaurant in the central Chinese city of Xian and that they may have traveled to Thailand.
North Korea runs some 130 restaurants in other countries, a vital source of income.
North Koreans in overseas restaurants are among some 50,000 workers sent abroad by the regime to earn much-needed dollars to help it tackle economic hardships amid the United Nations sanctions regime.
North Koreans – mostly young women – working at those restaurants are known to have good family backgrounds and must live in a group under strict surveillance.
Despite sharp penalties and retribution risks, nearly 30,000 North Koreans have fled to the South since the truce in 1953.
There are now between 50,000 and 60,000 workers on overseas jobs, according to the National Intelligence Service.
Such restaurants are known to be facing financial difficulties after the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) slapped tougher sanctions on Pyongyang for its January nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in February.
More than 29,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government data.
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