North Korean refugees said to be gathering in Vietnam

SINGAPORE - Some 300 refugees from isolated North Korea have taken refuge in communist Vietnam, apparently after fleeing through China, and could leave for the South as early as Monday, sources familiar with the issue said.

Officials declined to comment on the reports. Both South Korea and Vietnam appeared to be aiming for utmost secrecy to ensure nothing goes awry with the operation through a country that has friendly ties with the isolated Stalinist North.

The group would be the largest single batch of arrivals from the North, which has been condemned by the United Nations for human rights violations and where at least a million people are believed to have died of starvation in the late 1990s.

"The North Koreans are being helped by some South Koreans here," said a Vietnamese business woman with links to the South Korean business community in southern Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The refugees numbered about 300, she said.

"The South Koreans are providing for and taking care of them," she said, adding that they were expected to leave for South Korea soon but gave no date or details of their route.

An official at the South Korean embassy in Hanoi declined to confirm or deny reports that a group of refugees would leave within days for Seoul from Vietnam.

The North Korean embassy in Hanoi said it had no knowledge of the presence of such refugees in Vietnam.

"We know there is a group of North Korean refugees somewhere in Southeast Asia but we do not know exactly where they are now," said an official from the embassy in Hanoi.

It was not clear from what country the refugees would fly to the South or when.

South Korean officials were tight-lipped about the expected arrival of the refugees, although multiple agencies, including the foreign and unification ministries and the intelligence agency, are believed to be involved.

One official said Seoul's key concerns were the security of the refugees and maintaining anonymity of the countries and people involved in the movement of North Koreans.

"We have an arrangement with the third country involved," he said.

"It is not likely that we will be disclosing very much on the process even after the entire group has arrived," another official said.

The intense secrecy follows last week's confirmation by a senior government official of early reports on the refugees.

Officials declined to identify the country involved or the time of departures of chartered flights carrying the refugees.

An Asiana Airlines chartered plane was expected to leave for the country on Monday, followed by a Korean Air plane on Tuesday, sources familiar with the case said.

During decades of Cold War rivalry on the Korean peninsula, South Korea used to trumpet rare defectors from North Korea. But these days, Seoul gives the more numerous arrivals a low-key reception to avoid upsetting delicate diplomacy with Pyongyang.

Seoul has taken in more than 1,000 North Korean refugees a year in recent years.

Chun Ki-won, who leads a group of missionaries that has helped some in the group, told Reuters the estimated 400 refugees had travelled to the unidentified host country separately.

When the refugee numbers started to create problems for the host country, its government said it would send them back to China from where they had arrived, Chun said. It was then that Seoul apparently stepped in to bring them to the South, he said.

Vietnam has seen a flurry of diplomatic visits involving officials from both North and South Korea in the last few days.

Activists say as many as 300,000 North Koreans have found refuge in China and neighbouring countries since the peak of North Korea's famine in 1998.

Typically, they slip over the border from North Korea into China and then try to make their way south to escape into Southeast Asia. Some break into foreign missions and claim asylum.

China regards them as economic migrants, not refugees. Beijing has allowed a small number of North Koreans to travel to South Korea via a third country, but it is believed to have sent larger numbers home during periodic crackdowns.

- REUTERS