Number of N. Korean defectors coming to S. Korea estimated at 190 last year

North Korean defectors look at employment information at a job fair for North Korean defectors held in Seoul. Dec. 1, 2023. Yonhap

The number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea almost tripled to around 190 last year from a year ago, with defections by North Korean diplomats and trade officials on the rise, South Korea's vice unification minister said Wednesday.

The preliminary tally for 2023 compared with 67 recorded for the whole year of 2022, according to data from Seoul's unification ministry. The government will soon disclose confirmed yearly figures.

"There is a trend of more elite North Koreans defecting to South Korea," Vice Unification Minister Moon Seoung-hyun told a television program, without providing further details.

North Korean diplomats stationed at the country's overseas missions and officials engaged in trade affairs are believed to have chosen to flee their oppressive home country, as they are under pressure to send hard currency to the regime.

South Korea has a longstanding policy of accepting any North Korean defectors who want to live in the South and repatriating any North Koreans who stray into the South if they want to return.

South Korea is now home to more than 34,000 North Korean defectors, and the flow of defectors continues amid chronic food shortages and harsh political oppression in North Korea.

The number of North Koreans who arrived in South Korea hit a record low of 63 in 2021 as North Korea kept its borders closed to fend off the COVID-19 pandemic. This marks a dramatic decline from a record high of 2,914 in 2009, according to the ministry. (Yonhap)