A new report by a human rights organization reveals the horrors of Pyongyang's coal industry, which serves the country as a source of cash for its nuclear program
The money from the coal pads his pockets, Kim Jong Un // Photo: AFP
North Korea uses prisoners of war as slaves in its coal industry, and even encourages them to produce descendants who will continue their slave lives, a report by the human rights organization "North Korea's Civil Rights Alliance" reveals.
The report, dubbed "Coal and Blood", claims that generations of slaves are being held in the coal industry of Pyongyang, one of the largest sources of income for the beleagured country. And testimonies of North Korean guards who defected.
Choi Ki Sun (pseudonym) was captured in 1953 while serving in the South Korean Army during the war between the two countries.
Along with thousands of other prisoners he was transferred to work in the coal mines in the north.
"Every time I see slaves being dragged and beaten on TV, I think to myself," he told AFP.
"I was part of a unit of 670 prisoners. Most of them are no longer alive," says Choi, who managed to escape from North Korea during the Great Famine of the 1990s.
"We were dragged with gun threats to the labor camp. Anyone who refused to go was shot. We were guarded with armed guards all the time, what exactly is it if not slavery?"
Choi wonders.
Lee Sun Won, who speaks in his full name, was also enslaved after his tank was hit during the Korean War and he was forced to surrender.
"You have no idea how sad it is to be held captive by North Korea," he told AFP.
"We had to eat bark from trees and weeds. I had children in the camp, today they are also slaves. So many around me died," the elderly man, now 90, tells me.
A published report claims that more than 50,000 slaves like Choi and Lee are held in North Korea's coal industry. Some are descendants of POWs from the 1950s, others are political opponents of the regime. Minor and even without warm clothing, in severe cold conditions.
"They encouraged us to marry other inmates," Choi says. "They wanted us to bring children, who would also be slaves in the mines," he says.
Choi's wife and two children were left behind in a mine in North Korea and their fate is unknown.
"Generations of people are born, live and die in mining areas as they experience the most precarious conditions and the most brutal persecution imaginable," says Joanna Hosneik, one of the report's authors.
The North Korean coal industry provides a regular, albeit not always legal, flow of foreign currency.
North Korea's main customer is China, which uses various methods to circumvent US sanctions on North Korean goods.
The foreign currency that comes into the pocket of the Kim family, which controls the country, is used to develop the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile project, as well as ensuring a life of luxury and convenience for the ruling elite.
