Evidence of meeting #40 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:05 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't know about the other camps, I just know about the camp I was in. Those are the numbers from number 18 camp, where my siblings are still held. We had about 17,000 to 18,000 people in that number 18 camp.
We could see number 14 camp across the river but we had no idea how many people were there. That's in a different area too.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Do you know roughly how many of these kinds of concentration camps exist in North Korea?
2:05 p.m.
As an Individual
After I was released I went around and I saw number 14 and number 20 under the security department and there was number 15 in Yodok and number 20 in Hoeryong.
Then numbers 17, 18, 19, 21, and 22 concentration camps were in the area under the safety department.
That's all I know.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
In your story you talked briefly about getting from China to Laos. How did you get there?
2:05 p.m.
As an Individual
On March 4 I left Yanji in China. We don't really know Chinese; there was one person who had only one leg, and we followed him to Tianjin. There were a lot of defectors, about six of them, who joined us at Tianjin, and we were taken to Shandong. There, four more defectors joined the group. By phone calls, everyone was gathered in a group. There were ten people altogether.
From Shandong and Guanyun we went, and there was a bus waiting for us. There was a group of six who had waited one week for us to arrive there. So a total of 16 people rode in a refrigerated truck, sort of like a truck being driven by Chinese soldiers, and we were taken to the border, where we hid in the tall grass until it became dark. We waited for about two hours. The Chinese border guards told us that we should go down a specific path, and that was the border between China and Laos.
We rode eight to a boat in these wooden boats and crossed the river. There were Laotians at the other bank. We followed a small path for about two or three hours into Laos. We came down a mountain through that path. That took about two to three hours.
It was sort of like a desert area that we passed through. It took us about an hour to cross that. There was a huge rock there, a boulder, and we all hid in the shade. There was a boat. Everybody got into that boat. These were speedboats, jet boats, and about five and a half hours later we arrived in Thailand. We were just left off in Thailand. Those boats just sped back, because the people told us that if they got caught they would be imprisoned too.
Once we arrived in Thailand, there was a Korean broker, a woman, who met us there. She instructed us to all go our different ways in Thailand once we had arrived. She told us that if we just said “Korea” we'd end up in the North Korean embassy, so we had to say “San Korea”, meaning South Korea.
We didn't know any Thai at all either, so we just followed those directions. I was sent in a car to a different area. I told the people that I wanted to get on a plane to South Korea. We were told to pay 500 yuan per person. We arrived in Bangkok and went into a special area, a centre, where we were able to ask to be sent to South Korea. There were about 280 people in that centre waiting to be sent to South Korea.
On the boat, the jet boat that we rode to Thailand, I've told you that it was about five and a half hours long, that trip, and it was on that boat that one person was taken by the crocodile.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
That uses up all the time we have available today, so I'm going to take this opportunity to thank our witness, and also the two witnesses who will be back on Thursday, and thank all members for being here for the testimony and for allowing us to go a little bit over our allotted time.
The meeting is adjourned.