Although numbers are hard to pinpoint, people have been trying to escape the world’s most repressive country, North Korea, for decades, especially since a period of famine in the 1990s.
Despite its propaganda, the world now has a clearer picture of the horror of North Korea’s concentration camps and poverty, because even armed border guards can be bribed and North Koreans are hungry for information.
In her book Escape From North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad, former Wall Street Journal deputy opinion editor Melanie Kirkpatrick describes the hardship of life in North Korea and the difficulty a few lucky residents have had during and after escaping.