North Korean Doctor Asks for Asylum

It was confirmed that a North Korean medical doctor is expected to seek asylum to South Korea. Not long ago, a prominent North Korean scientist who used to be a government official applied for refugee status in South Korea.

“Hahn Young Yim (female, 65) escaped North Korea in January. She is the former head of a hospital that belongs to the North Korean armed forces. She is now in a Southeast Asian country and expected to seek asylum in South Korea,” Do Hee-yoon, who heads the Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korea Refugees (C.H.N.K.), said on May 19.

Do explained, “It is the first time a director of a hospital will defect to South Korea. Hahn prefers South Korea to the U.S. because the U.S. offers very few settlement programs for North Korean refugees.”

Once a Migrant, Now a Defector –

As an ethnic Korean in China, Hahn came from Jilin province. In the mid 1960s, she graduated from a medical school in Nanjing.

At the time, China was undergoing its Cultural Revolution where the intellectual elites often fell prey to terrorist attacks. Threatened by the social unrest in China, Hahn moved to North Korea whose policy granted privileges to doctors, scientists and engineers.

Since the late 1970s, she had practiced medicine in North Korea and built a reputation as a surgeon. She started her career at a local hospital whose patients were civilians, worked for hospitals in larger towns and cities, and finally moved to a military hospital.

Since she obtained membership in the North Korean labor party in the mid-1980s, she had been in charge of the military hospital up until her recent retirement. It is known that her patients included not only senior party officials but also relatives of Kim Il Sung, the late North Korean leader, and his son, Kim Jong Il.

Despite the privileges she enjoyed in North Korea, Hahn decided to flee because she has grown skeptical of the North Korean regime. Her relatives remaining in China have kept her informed of South Korea’s development and changes that openness brought about in China. Thus, she is quite knowledgeable about what is going on in South Korea.

Disappointed by the Crumbling North Korean Medical System –

Hahn’s story of escaping North Korea is dotted with difficulties.

After she left her home with the help from her relatives in China, she had to walk at night so as not to be discovered by North Korean soldiers. She survived several critical moments to cross the border into China. But China was a very dangerous place for a North Korean escapee.

She had to move from place to place in search for a hiding place and managed to ask the C.H.N.K. for help. The human rights organization offered her protection and arranged her move from China to a Southeast Asian country in mid-May. While crossing the border, she faced a random inspection and was almost sent back to North Korea. But she narrowly escaped the danger of repatriation.

“In North Korea, even doctors suffer hunger. They sell medicines, draining the inventory of anesthetics. It is not an unusual case where a patient undergoes an operation without a shot of anesthetic. Hungry people lie dying on the streets. Patients die because hospitals have no medicines. I felt extremely frustrated,” Hahn said.

According to her, up until the 1980s, North Koreans received free medical treatment and education. Moreover, the armed forces were able to manufacture pharmaceuticals on their own. Since the 1990s, however, the medical system has started falling apart.

“Senior party officials are very dissatisfied with the regime, let alone the general public,” Hahn commented. She even remarked on the North Korean leader, “What else is Kim Jong Il doing other than drinking and womanizing?

On her future plans, she said, “I heard that South Korea is highly concerned about the welfare of its senior citizens. I want to serve them.”

weappon@donga.com