The family of sixteen-year-old Jang Kil Su who had requested asylum and recognition as refugees at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Beijing, China on June 26 arrived in Korea Saturday evening through Incheon International Airport.
The seven members of Jang's family left Beijing for Singapore on Friday morning, and just staying for two hours at Singapore's Changi Airport, transferred to another flight for the Philippines. The North Korean defectors left Manila airport at 1pm Saturday and landed at Incheon at around 6:10pm.
The group composed of Kil Su, his grandparents on his mother's side, and his aunt's family waved to the press waiting for them at the airport and thanked the South Korean government for accepting them. There were no press conferences or immigration procedures for Kil Su's family but the authorities escorted them from the airport under strict security to an unrevealed accommodation in Seoul.
The government plans to hold a physical checkup for the family members and then investigate how they escaped from North Korea, how they maintained themselves in China, and then why they came to protest at the UNHCR office in China.
(Jinna Park, jinna@chosun.com)
