Three North Korean Waitresses Defect to South Korea

Pyongyang’s restaurants overseas are being hit hard by international sanctions

By Elizabeth Shim

An employee of a North Korean restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Yanji tries to stop the camera crew from filming the site on April 11. Many of Pyongyang's state-run restaurants are being hit hard by sanctions, according to Seoul's spy agency. Photo by Yonhap/UPI

SEOUL, June 1 (UPI) -- Three North Korean waitresses who fled a restaurant in China in May have arrived in South Korea, according to government officials.

"It is true North Korean waitresses who once worked in a third-party country have entered the [South]," said a Seoul unification ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, according to local news service News 1.

The defectors, all in their late twenties, were in in custody in Thailand before the South Korean embassy in Bangkok accepted them as refugees.

They all fled from the same restaurant near the historical city of Xi'an in central China.

Two of the women are 29 years old, and the third is 28. All are originally from Pyongyang, Yonhap reported.

The defections occurred on May 10, immediately after the end of North Korea's Seventh Party Congress.

The waitresses traveled by land carrying only bare necessities through China and Laos to reach Thailand. They probably did not have access to their passports.

The defections took place a month after a group of 13 defectors fled another China-based North Korean restaurant in early April.

More state workers who are trusted by the regime are leaving, possibly because of financial troubles.

Seoul's National Intelligence Service told South Korean parliamentarians on April 27 that North Korean restaurants overseas are being hit hard by international sanctions. About 20 North Korean restaurants in China, the United Arab Emirates and other locations have closed, according to the spy agency.

One of the 13 defectors who arrived in the South on April 7 had said that as "sanctions worsened, many saw that there is no hope in the North Korean regime...which is why we fled to Seoul."

North Korea Murders Christian Pastor in China

Christian pastor aiding North Koreans killed

in 'retaliation,' source says

A North Korean source said state security is trying to dodge blame for the group defection of restaurant workers.

By Elizabeth Shim


A North Korean woman and hostess stands outside a North Korean restaurant waiting for customers in Dandong, China's largest border city with North Korea. North Korea could be targeting individuals in China helping defectors in the border region, according to a source in North Korea. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

SEOUL, May 17 (UPI) -- A band of "gangsters" killed a Christian pastor who assisted North Korean defectors in China, according to a source in North Korea.

The incident was an act of "retaliation" for the defection of 13 North Korean restaurant workers in China, the source told South Korean news service Daily NK.

North Korea has claimed the defectors were "dragged" against their will to the South, and that they were "kidnapped" by South Korean intelligence agents.

That's right! Because if you were going to risk your life to abduct someone from North Korea, it would certainly be a bunch of waitresses. 

There's something seriously wrong with a government that has to lie so blatantly to their own people.

A South Korean activist group has also said North Korean agents cross into China to track down defectors and their helpers.

The Korean-Chinese pastor Han Chungryeol was the founder of Jangbaek Church in Jilin in 1993. As part of his work, he provided assistance to North Koreans in China.

Activists in the South have said Han was murdered on April 30, less than a month after 12 North Korean waitresses and their manager fled a state-run restaurant in Ningbo.

According to Daily NK's source, North Korea state security is trying to skirt blame for the group defection, and is recruiting thugs and deploying undercover agents posing as defector's relatives and border traders in order to penetrate the activities of human rights activists and missionaries in the region.

There's only one band of gangsters in North Korea and that is the entire government and military.

North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau is deploying young agents overseas, the source added.

Pyongyang is probably planning to abduct South Korean nationals, particularly those affiliated with the military and the government, as well as human rights activists, so that an exchange could be made for the 13 defectors, the source said.

Why not waitresses?

A South Korean Christian minister has gone missing, and according to a South Korean report, the minister, who was also a defector, could have been kidnapped to North Korea.