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| A girl who fled North Korea in search of her mother: 'My family members were disappearing one by one |
Songmi Park planted his feet firmly on the bank before crossing the river. She knew that at this point they should be afraid because the river was deep and the current was fast. If they were caught, the punishment was certain. Maybe they would have been shot.
But at this point, he felt a stronger emotion than fear. She was fleeing North Korea in search of her mother who left her at fifty-five.
As they waded through the icy waters of the river in the misty darkness of the evening, they felt as if they were flying in the air.
It was the evening of May 31, 2019. "How can I forget the best and worst day of my life?" she says.
Trying to escape from North Korea is a dangerous and difficult task. In recent years, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has dealt harshly with such attempts. At the beginning of Corona, they closed the borders of the country. 17-year-old Songmi was the last person to escape the country before the ban.
Songmi was crossing the Yalu River for the second time. This river flows between North Korea and China and is also the easiest escape route.
She was tied to her mother's back while crossing the river for the first time. That time is still imprinted on his mind as if it was yesterday.
He remembers hiding on a loved one's farm where the state police came looking for him. He remembers his mother and father pleading not to send him back. His beloved cried and said, "Send me in his place." The police beat him so much that his face started bleeding.
On his return to North Korea, he remembers that his father's hands were tied behind his waist. She also remembers standing on a train station platform and watching her parents go to the infamous North Korean prison. He was four years old at that time.
Songmi was sent to her father's parents, who lived in the town of Musan, an hour and a half from the Chinese border. She was told that she could not go to school.
Education in North Korea is free, but families have to pay teachers bribes, and Songmi's grandparents were poor.
He spent his childhood wandering in the town. She was often sick. "I didn't eat much and my immune system was weak. But when I woke up after the illness, I would find the food kept by my grandmother on the window.
One evening when his parents had been in jail for five years, his father suddenly appeared and took him in his arms. She was extremely happy. Life could begin again. But three days later his father died. Jail life had taken a toll on his health.
When Songmi's mother came back a week later and got the news, she was devastated. He made an incredible decision. And that she will try to escape from North Korea once again. And that too alone.
The morning Songmi's mother left, she felt something was different. His mother was wearing a strange dress that belonged to his grandmother.
"I didn't know what she was thinking but I knew if she left I wouldn't be able to see her for a long time."
As soon as her mother left the house, Songmi buried her head in the bed sheet and started crying.
The next 10 years were going to be very difficult for him.
Within two years, his grandfather died. At the age of 10, Songmi was alone. He also had to take care of his ailing grandmother. There was no source of income.
My family members were disappearing one by one. It was all very scary.
Every morning Songmi would travel two hours and go into the mountains to look for plants to eat and sell.
A few plants could be sold as medicine in the local market, but before that, they had to be washed, cleaned, and dried, which required them to work late into the night.
"I didn't have time to work or plan for the next day. Every day I tried not to be hungry, and to get through the day.
300 miles away, Myung Hui had reached South Korea.
After traveling to China for a year, he reached an embassy in South Korea via Laos and Thailand.
The South Korean government has an agreement to resettle North Korean defectors, and Myung Hui was flown to Seoul.
He began cleaning the ships at a shipbuilding factory in the South Korean coastal town of Ulsan to finance his daughter's escape.
They worked every day because escaping North Korea was an expensive process. It requires a person who knows how to overcome all difficulties and can remove obstacles along the way through bribery.
At night, Myung Hui sits alone in the dark and thinks about her daughter, what she would be doing, and how she would look now.
Songmi's birthday would have been the most difficult day for him. On that day, she would take out a doll from the cupboard and talk to it and pretend that it was her daughter so that her relationship with her daughter would live on.
Songmi's mother wept when she talked about those days. His daughter held his arms. "Stop crying, your beautiful makeup is getting ruined."
After paying $17,000 to a broker, they made Songmi's escape possible. Suddenly Songmi's years of waiting are over and the sinking hopes are supported.
Across the Yalu RiverAfter reaching China, Songmi hid. They were afraid that no one would catch them. They crossed the mountains in a bus and reached Laos where they took refuge in a church.
After that, they also reached the South Korean Embassy. She had to stay here for three months after which she reached South Korea.
For ten months, he had to stay in a place where people who escaped from North Korea are kept. The journey took a year but for Songmi it was like ten years.
Finally, mother and daughter are reunited and now they are together.
"The day I was to be released from the resettlement facility in South Korea, I was very worried," she says. I didn't know what to say to my mother. I wanted to look good in front of them, but I had lost weight and my hair was ruined.
"I was worried too," Myung Hui admitted. In fact, Myung Hui doesn't even recognize her daughter, whom she last saw at the age of eight. Now she was 18 years old.
When she came in front of me, I believed that it must be my daughter. I wanted to say a lot but the words were not coming out of my mouth. I hugged her and said it's great, you have gone through so much trouble to reach here.
Songmi says her mind went blank. We hugged and cried for 15 minutes. It all seemed like a dream.
Songmi and her mother begin to reconnect, but one question remains stuck in Songmi's mind. It was a question she asked herself every day since she was eight years old.
"Why did you leave me?"
Myung Hui explains that it was her idea to escape the first time, but it was difficult for her to face her husband's family after being released from prison. "I used to remind them every day that their son is dead and I am alive."
He had no money and no way to support his daughter alone.
I wanted to take you along but the broker said no child can come. And if we were caught, we would both suffer. I asked your grandmother to take care of you for a year.
Songmi lowered her eyes and said, 'Just one year turned into ten years.'
His mother said: 'Yes.'
"The morning I left, my legs were refusing to move, but your grandfather plucked up the courage." I want to tell you that I did not leave you alone. I wanted to give you a good life. And it seemed like the right step.
People outside of North Korea will find this strange. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for the residents of this country to make decisions and take risks.
Kim Jong-un's government has been steadily increasing border security and toughening penalties for attempted escapes.
Before 2020, 1,000 people from North Korea reached South Korea every year. In 2020, when Songmi escaped, the number rose to 229.
A year ago, after the Corona epidemic, South Korea closed its border and the general public was prohibited from traveling abroad.
Soldiers at the borders were ordered to shoot those who tried to escape. Last year, 67 people from North Korea arrived in South Korea, most of whom escaped before the Corona epidemic.
Songyi was among the last to leave the country before the border was closed.
She says that it was getting hot in the summer. In 2017 the crops were drying up and there was nothing to eat from autumn to spring.
But the farmers were expected to hand over their remaining crops to the government as is done every year. They went to the mountains in search of food. A few decided to give up farming.
Another major source of income in their town is mining. But she says the miners also had bad luck.
International sanctions were imposed after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2017, meaning no one could buy the country's iron ore.
The mine stopped working and the miners also stopped getting paid. She says that people used to go into the mine at night and steal parts that could be sold.
But the biggest crime and fear in 2019 was getting caught watching a foreign movie or TV show. Many films and programs are smuggled into North Korea that give people a glimpse of life outside the country.
But the North Korean state considers these films and programs to be the biggest threat.
"Earlier, if you were caught watching a South Korean movie, you would be fined or sent to jail for two to three years, but after 2019, you will be sent to political prison for watching the same movie," Songmi says.
Songmi was caught with an Indian film on a USB stick but convinced the security officer that he did not know the stick contained film. They were fined.
After arriving in South Korea, in June 2022, one day his friend's mother received a phone call.
"They said that my friend was caught with a copy of the South Korean drama Squid and because he was passing the drama to the people, he was sentenced to death."
Songmi's words confirm the news coming from North Korea.
"It seems things have gotten worse now," she says. Because of people's access to South Korean media, they are shot or sent to camps and are not seen until their age.
However, adapting to life in South Korea is not easy for those coming from North Korea. It is an amazing experience for them. But it's not all that strange for Songmi.
She misses her friends whom she could not tell that she was leaving. She remembers dancing with them and playing with stones in the mud.
"When you meet friends in South Korea, you just go shopping or have coffee," she says.
What helped them live in this environment was their belief that they were no different from the people of South Korea.
"During months of traveling in China and Laos, I felt like an orphan being sent to another country," she says. '
But the way they were greeted by the authorities at the Seoul airport eased their worries. It was the same word used to say hello in North Korea.
"I understand that we are people living on the same land and I have not come to a new country, I have only traveled south."
She sat and cried at the airport for 10 minutes.
Songmi has known the purpose of her life. Reuniting the two Koreas. In South Korea, everyone is shown this dream, but not everyone believes in it.
As time passes, fewer and fewer people feel the need to re-unite the two parts. This thinking is especially prevalent among the youth.
Songmi now visits schools to teach children about North Korea. She asks who's thinking of a union and usually, there are few hands raised.
But when she asks someone to draw a map of Korea, most draw a map of the entire island that includes both North and South Korea. This is what gives them hope.
There are no more problems between Songmi and her mother. They are often seen laughing and hugging each other, and Songmi's mother wipes her tears whenever she cries remembering the past.
Songmi says her mother made the right decision as they now live happily in South Korea.
Myung Hui might not recognize her daughter at first, but now the two look alike. Now he can see himself in his daughter when she was 19 herself.
Their relationship is like friends or sisters. But when Songmi has a conflict with her mother, they realize.
"Then I find out that I really live with my mother," she laughs.