North Korea defectors take to the “Underground Railroad”/ GoodShit

From  GoodShit

Thursday, June 9, 2011

BANGKOK, Thailand — In the beginning, they arrived in ones and twos across the Mekong River. They were dirty, skeleton-thin and scared to death.

Sugint Dechkul, a small-town lawyer in Thailand’s far-northern Chiang Rai province, had no idea what to make of them. They’d wander up the riverside country road near his home, sometimes begging for food or shelter in an alien tongue.

“We’d ask, ‘Where are you from?’ They couldn’t answer,” Sugint said.

Finally, through painstaking pantomime, one of the stragglers conveyed his origins. North Korea. Nearly 3,000 miles away.

That was nine years ago. Today, the so-called “underground railroad” traveled by North Korean defectors increasingly terminates in Thailand.

“The first ones looked like they hadn’t showered in a month. Now they come in big groups. They know their way and they know what they’re doing.”

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