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Tuesday, March 8, 2005
WHO WAS YOO CHUL MIN?
By Jeremy Reynalds Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SEOUL,KOREA (ANS) -- A 10-year-old North Korean refugee boy hiding in China made a life-and-death gamble to cross the China-Mongolian border under the cover of darkness. (Pictured: Yoo Chul Min).
For a North Korean, reaching Mongolia safely means putting to rest the constant fear of being arrested in China and getting sent back to North Korea.
The boy’s name was Yoo Chul Min and his courageous decision resulted in a heart-rending tragedy.
Tim Peters, the Project Manager of Helping Hands (a Family Care Foundation (FCF) Project) in Seoul, Korea knew the boy a little and told the story of his courageous but tragic bid for freedom.
Writing on the FCF web site (www.familycare.org/stories/yoochul.htm), Peters said that Chul Min joined five other North Koreans, also desperate for freedom. However, Peters wrote, Chul Min and his companions became disoriented during the 26 hours they spent in the desert-like conditions of the Mongolian frontier.
According to Peters, years of gradual malnutrition in North Korea had weakened Chul Min's body to such an extent that the normal resistance to the elements present in a healthy preteen boy just weren’t there.
As a result, Peters said, Chul Min died from exhaustion and exposure. His body was carried across the Mongolian border by an adult refugee once the remaining members of the team regained their bearings.
Peters said he briefly met Chul Min in the course of his work with Helping Hands Korea. At that time, Peters wrote, Chul Min was under the protection of Korean missionaries in the Yenbian (ethnic Chinese-Korean region) district of northeast China.
“I remember noticing how withdrawn this boy was,” Peters wrote. “Because he had lived in China for over a year, he did not immediately strike me as malnourished and his clothes were clean. I noticed with some amusement that he would never take off his baseball cap, even inside the house of my friend. My curiosity grew into a little personal challenge to spend some time with him, and see if I could find a way to break through that shell of suspicion of foreigners and get a friendship started.”
Peters said he was told by the people caring for Chul Min that the boy was very studious and doing well in a Chinese elementary school.
“One day .... I happened to spot on the missionary's bookshelf the Korean version of a book that I had read countless times with my own five children, in English, as they were growing up, ‘The Picture Bible,’” Peters wrote.
“Despite his initial reluctance to sit down next to a dreaded American, Chul Min's curiosity about the book seemed to get the upper hand,” Peters wrote, “and soon we were leafing through the wonderfully illustrated volume together and he was eagerly reading the Korean text aloud. It became the bridge for what I hoped would be a real friendship. Little did I realize at that time that death was only a month away for my little newfound friend.”
PREVENTING SIMILAR TRAGEDIES
Helping Hands Korea, Peters said, is determined to prevent the recurrence of this tragedy in the lives of other North Korean children.
With that in mind, the ministry has developed a two-pronged project that assists North Korean refugees, especially children and teenagers, in China and other countries to which they have fled.
Peters wrote, “My wife and I have made three trips to the refugee area, including two times with a doctor to provide medical care as well as financial and moral support.”
He added, “We continue to help support highly transparent humanitarian aid projects within hard-hit regions of North Korea itself, provided the deliveries of foodstuffs, medicine, etc. can be verified with accuracy.”
BACKGROUND ON NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES LIVING IN CHINA
In written testimony before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations’ Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific (http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/pet042804.htm), Peters provided some background on the approximately 300,000 North Korean refugees who live fearfully in China.
“Driven by famine and an oppressive social system, a growing stream of North Koreans drained from every current of North Korean society risk their lives to furtively cross the watery borders of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers to China,” Peters said.
“For the fortunate few who evade capture by border patrols on the adjoining river banks,” Peters said, “the mirage of China as a safe haven quickly fades in the glare of enforcement policies of a security apparatus perpetually on high-alert for any uncontrolled population movements on its borders, particularly from impoverished North Korea.
Peters told the House Subcommittee that at best, China provides only a “brief respite” from the everyday hunger and repression that are routine in North Korea.
“With their clothing still wet from the river crossing,” Peters continued, “refugees are typically dismayed to discover that China is far less a ‘light at the end of a dark tunnel’ than a ‘no-man’s land’ fraught with sudden new perils in the form of betrayal, capture, and rampant human trafficking. The dangers do not end there.”
Peters said, “Refugees dread interception by their nation’s own secret police who roam China freely, tracking down refugees—either to do away with them on the spot or drag them back to prisons in North Korea.”
According to its website, FCF provides humanitarian services and support and training to grassroots organizations in developing countries.
To find out more information about Helping Hands Korea go to www.familycare.org/network/p01.htm. To learn more about FCF go to www.familycare.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeremy Reynalds is a freelance writer and the founder and director of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org or http://www.christianity.com/joyjunction. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico and is a candidate for the Ph.D. in intercultural education at Biola University in Los Angeles. He is married with five children and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jgreynalds@aol.com. Tel: (505) 877-6967 or (505) 400-7145. Note: A black and white JPEG picture of Jeremy Reynalds is available on request from Dan Wooding at danjuma1@aol.com.
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