"Uriminzokkiri TV, a North Korea propaganda broadcaster, aired a video depicting the lives of the youngsters who the communist regime argues were once "enticed and kidnapped" by South Korean authorities. In the clip, four students are seen taking a class and using a computer at a high school in Pyongyang known as a cradle for artists and technology experts," The Korea Herald, a South Korean daily English-language newspaper reported.
The Korea Herald suggests that the footage has been publicized by Pyongyang in order to put down speculations that some of the young refugees were executed, while others were sent to labor camps.
"After being kidnapped by the South Chosun puppets, the nine young people have returned to their homeland, and in accordance with their wishes, are free to learn; a year and seven months have already passed since their lives started afresh," North Korea's broadcaster narrates, as cited by NK Daily, South Korean English-language media source.
In a video titled "Life for 9 Teenagers after Returning to the Warm Embrace of the Republic after Being Kidnapped by South Chosun [Korean] Puppets" Uriminzokkiri TV has revealed that while four of the young ex-defectors are studying at the prestigious Kumsong middle school in Pyonyang, four others have entered a prominent high school in far northern Hyesan, and the remaining refugee has been admitted to a teachers college in Hamhung, in South Hamgyong Province.
"I can hold my head up with pride since I go to the school that others want to but just can't," Ryu Chol-ryong, another refugee, said.
However, the footage did not show the five other youths, two of whom were allegedly executed by North Korea's authorities, the media outlet stresses. Park Sun-Young, a former Seoul lawmaker and a campaigner for refugees' rights declared last week that two of the nine teenagers had been executed while the rest had been detained in a prison labor camp.
Agence France-Presse notes that North Koreans defectors face severe punishment, including imprisonment, after deportation to the homeland, citing human rights organizations and refugees in Seoul. Remarkably, the number of North Koreans defecting to the South plummeted from 2,706 in 2011 to 1,514 in 2013. Pyongyang dismisses the accusations, insisting that it treats North Korean returnees well.
