Inside Hwang's network, moving defectors, cash across N. Korea's hardening border
Hwang Ji-sung, 46, fled North Korea in 2009. Since then, he has helped roughly 3,000 people escape the North and sent money to many of the families they left behind. “At first, I didn't understand why defectors would cry over having no news of their families. Getting that kind of news wasn't hard for me,” Hwang said in an interview with The Korea Times. “So I told them, 'I'll do it for you.'”…
Hwang Ji-sung, a 46-year-old North Korean defector, has assisted around 3,000 people in escaping North Korea and supporting their families back home. He shared his personal experience with The Korea Times, explaining that while others might have been overwhelmed by the lack of news about their loved ones, his own situation was different.
He offered to help them instead. Hwang's journey into smuggling and defector assistance began in his hometown of Musan County, located in North Hamgyong Province, where he grew up with intimate knowledge of the North Korea-China border, including the Tuman River's currents and water levels. During the famine in the 1990s, which resulted in an estimated 600,000 to 3 million deaths, Hwang started smuggling goods into China.
He also provided assistance to women who had been trafficked into China and desired to return to their families in North Korea, guiding them to the banks of the Tuman River. In 2005, Hwang attempted to defect himself, motivated by a desire for freedom and stories of life in South Korea.
Written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
