North Korea's "Underground Railroad": the clandestine network that helps thousands of refugees flee the worst dictatorship in the world

He is known as "the Metro" and realized what some of the most powerful institutions in the world could not do: Helping thousands of refugees escape the worst dictatorship in the world, that of North Korea.

Its name derives from the clandestine network that, in the 19th century, helped African-American slaves flee the plantations of the southern United States. His members –Anonymous Heroes– They used metaphorically the railway terms to designate their activities.

Likewise, almost two centuries later and on the other side of the world, other anonymous heroes They risk their lives to do what the international community can not or will not do. For two decades, the activists of this new Underground Railroad have built a network of secret roads and safe homes to transport North Korean refugees throughout Asia, generally South Korea.

The journalist Doug Block Clark explained in a detailed note to GQ How the network works through the story of two protagonists: Faith, a North Korean refugee who managed to escape the country with her two children after a risky 2,500-kilometer journey, and Stephen Kim, a mysterious man, a member of the network, known as "The Oskar Schindler of North Korea". It is believed that for more than two decades he has managed to save more than 700 North Koreans.

The roads of Faith and Kim They met for the first time in 2017.

Until then, the life of the woman had been anything but easy. Among other things, during his thirty years of life, he suffered the famine that hit North Korea in the mid-90s and was sold about 800 dollars to a Chinese farmer by unscrupulous smugglers who had promised him a job and a better life in China.

In China, she was captive for four years. Four years of work on the farm and at home, with the in-laws watching her as guards to prevent her from fleeing. However, she considered herself lucky because her husband "had a nice heart": he was not beaten or shouted, like many other husbands he had heard of, who mistreated their women bought from North Korea. During this time, he had two children. A third, the eldest, had stayed in North Korea with her first husband.

Until then, along with six other North Korean women living in the village, who had also been bought by Chinese, began planning for their flight to South Korea. They discovered that there were people who for a few thousand dollars They could smuggle them into an embbady in South Korea, Southeast Asia. Two of the women were successful in 2016. After arriving in Seoul, they linked their smuggler to Faith. A contractor explained to him on the phone that even if she did not have the money, someone could help her. She had been selected to receive help from the "Underground Railroad".

The leak occurred late 2017while the husband was away for a work trip. A car took her and her two children to a safe haven in a city in northern China.

There he received a call. "Are you OK?", asked a male voice. "I prayed for your safety." The man told him that from that moment he had to follow the instructions of the smugglers, whom he would handle from a distance. This man was Stephen Kim

Stephen Kim, "Oskar Schindler from North Korea"

The life of this former businessman, who was raised in South Korea in a North Korean and Christian family, took a turn in 1997, when his textile company went bankrupt. The new situation requires him to move with his family to a small apartment with shared bathroom in Dalian, China. He thought of committing suicide. But he remembered the children who were malnourished by famine in North Korea and promised to dedicate their life to them and to Jesus' life. With his latest savings, he rented several cheap apartments and began to invite dozens of homeless North Korean refugees to settle there. Soon, however, his activity began to arouse the suspicions of the Chinese authorities, an iron ally of the Pyongyang regime. At the end of 2000, while trying to get the children out of a prominent North Korean scientist, he was arrested. He was tortured and managed to leave after his wife, financed by a family and a humanitarian NGO, managed to pay a bribe.

Kim "was devastated." But then he felt that God urged him to continue his mission. In mid-2002, he once again lived in northern China and with funds from the NGO North Korea's Citizens' Alliance for Human Rights (NKHR), He personally guided a small number of refugees to South Korean embbadies in Southeast Asia.

Until the harbadment of the Chinese authorities started again. He was the victim of an badbadination attempt by North Korean agents and decided to seek refuge with his family in the United States. However, he could not emigrate with them because of his past. He has not seen them for more than ten years. He now lives in South Korea, where he became a distant supervisor, who has been using his contacts since his days in China to handle the situation on the ground.

A path more and more dangerous

The efforts of Stephen Kim they join those of other South Korean, American, Japanese and Chinese activists and several official organizations that constitute the backbone of the movement. "underground railway"

The surest way to get refugees out of North Korea is to go through China and then a large part of South-East Asia. It is a journey of about 9,500 kilometers. In 2001, more than 1,000 people managed to leave. For 2007, this number has increased to over 2,500. In 2008, China strengthened security before the Beijing Olympics and things got worse in 2011, when Kim Jong-un he became the new leader of North Korea. For the young dictator, the destruction of the "Underground Railroad" has become the priority. In the year before Jong-un came to power, 2,706 refugees were released. The following year, in 2012, they were only 1,502.

For 2017when Faith tried to escape, the arrests had become so widespread that only 1,127 refugees were released.

The difficulty of organizations to monitor smugglers is causing more problems. Four subway sources indicated that since 2017, conflicts between refugees and smugglers have multiplied. There have been proven cases of smugglers who have raped refugee women. In addition, few NGOs follow refugees once they arrive in South Korea. Scams to deceive North Koreans are commonplace.

These issues are worrying some activists for the future of the "Underground Railroad". according to Melanie Kirkpatrick, principal investigator of the Hudson Institute and author of a book on the subject, the disappearance of the network would be a serious lossbecause refugees are the main source of information about what is happening inside the hermetic regime. At the same time, mobile phones, USB drives, radios and DVDs smuggled into North Korea by the "Underground Railroad" are a subversive force that "It helps to sow discord and feed dissent", which may make it the biggest threat to the regime.

During the escape from Faith, Kim led Faith's group on a relatively new and risky road, to Vietnam, planning to extract them by the South Korean Embbady in Cambodia. In the Cambodian capital, a priest took her to the South Korean Embbady, ​​where she was recognized as a citizen. After two months of paperwork, he flew to Seoul. It was the first flight of his life.

Faith was struggling to adapt to her new life, alone with two children in a foreign country. He joined the church in which Kim is pastor. One Sunday, Kim closed her sermon by announcing that with the help of the Church, eight North Koreans were saved this week.

In early 2019, Faith went by bus into the demilitarized zone, the space that divides the two Koreas north of Seoul. While foreigners and South Koreans took photos from a tourist point of viewShe looked at the mountains of the country from where she had taken refuge. He could not help but think of the family he had left there and that he would probably never see again.