How first people to escape North Korea in 2023 journeyed to South - BBC News

How first people to escape North Korea in 2023 journeyed to South - BBC News#North Korea #BBCNews

Earlier this year, a man pulled off a seemingly impossible escape from North Korea. He fled by sea with his entire family - his pregnant wife, his mother, his brother's family, and an urn containing his father's ashes.

They are the first people to have fled the country this year and make it to the South.

Mr Kim told the BBC how he masterminded his escape, in the first interview with a defector to have got out since the pandemic.

The BBC cannot independently verify all of Mr Kim's account, but much of the detail tallies with what we have been told by other sources.