(Photo: ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images) In a photo taken on April 15, 2019 tourists from China stand on a viewing deck of the Juche tower overlooking the city skyline of Pyongyang.
The possible forced repatriation of a significant number of North Koreans, who rights groups claim face imprisonment and mistreatment at the hands of North Korean officials, prompted South Korea to announce on Friday that it has protested to China.
Koo Byoung-sam, a spokeswoman for South Korea's Unification Ministry, stated during a press conference that any forced repatriation of North Koreans violates international rules and is unfortunate, as reported by NBC News.
South Korea has been unable to ascertain the number of participants or whether any of them were defectors.
When asked about a report that Beijing had deported some 600 North Korean defectors this week despite a South Korean appeal not to send individuals back, a representative for the Chinese foreign ministry claimed on Thursday that there were no "so-called defectors" in China.
Chinese authorities have never acknowledged North Korean refugees as defectors, instead referring to them as "economic migrants."
Wang Wenbin, a spokeswoman for the Chinese ministry, said China had always handled the situation "properly" in accordance with the principles of both domestic and international law and humanitarianism when referring to North Koreans who came illegally for economic reasons.
Defectors who are sent back to the North are subject to harsh punishment, including incarceration in labor camps where they face hazardous treatment and conditions, according to the government of South Korea and international rights organizations.
More Than 500 North Koreans Returned to China
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that more than 500 North Koreans, mostly women, had been forcibly returned to China by Chinese authorities. The organization urged governments to condemn this expulsion and demand a halt to it.
The rights organization cited a missionary with ties in the North and China who works to assist defectors as saying that the North Koreans were carried in vehicle convoys on Monday night over five different border crossings into the North.
The most recent returnees, according to HRW, were "gravely at risk" of being held in camps for forced labor. Additionally, they risk being subjected to torture, forced disappearance, and death.
The rights organization asked governments everywhere to "denounce China's latest returns and call for an end to future forced returns".
Additionally, it urged Beijing to provide the North Korean defectors with safe passage to South Korea or other nations or to grant them refugee status.
A North Korean who fled to South Korea in 2001 claimed that this week's deportations included his cousin, who had spent 25 years living in China and had a daughter with a Chinese man.
The defector, Kim Hyuk, told Reuters that his cousin, Kim Cheol-ok, had recently called her daughter from prison to say she was due to be transported back to North Korea after being caught by Chinese officials in Jilin province in April.
Related article: South Korea Expresses Concern Over China's Alleged Decision To Repatriate North Korean Escapees
