#dont seperate families
Dear Mr.& Mrs related to International Federation of Red Cross,
I was born in North Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). And I grew up and was educated in the North. Until 5 years ago that I had been living a happy life, married. But now I live in South Korea separated from my family as one of North Korean defectors in the capitalistic South Korea, completely different from North Korea. I am Kim, Lyunhee (Kim Ryon Hui) and my life here is harsh and miserable.
Against my will, I was separated with my children, parents and sisters. I have lived in South Korea for 4 long years in this unfamiliar place, hoping to see my family again. But I can’t stay here any longer and I can’t stand the excruciating suffering any more. I am writing this to tell the International Federation of Red Cross under UN, that my wish is to come back to my family. I hope my earnest plea will be answered.
In June 2011, I had left my hometown of Pyeongyang to China, with my DPRK passport, to get a treatment for my chronic illness, and one of my cousins lived in China. During my stay at my cousin’s place, I was told that South Korea is a rich nation, and a few months of work in the South would get me a fortune. Believing what I was told I decided to come to South Korea hoping to earn my medical expenses. However, I was fooled by brokers. They gave me wrong and deceiving information.
Arriving in South Korea, from the very first day of the education programs for North Korean defectors, I told over and over the National Intelligence Service that I was fooled by brokers and I had no intention to defect. I consistently and strongly raised my demand to be sent back to my hometown telling that I was not meant to become a defector and just a victim of greedy brokers. I argued, pleaded, begged, and even went on a hunger strike. However, the South Korea government has rejected my plea of going back to North Korea. Even more, they have refused to issue a passport to me over 4 years up until now, saying that I might flee. This is a sheer violation of basic human rights and universal rights.
I even made several attempts to stow away and get a fake passport to go to North Korea and reunite with my parents and daughter. But each time my dreams of going back home was shattered in pieces. I admit that I was wrong to violate law and order of the South, but I did that because I had to be back to my family.
Ignorant of South Korean laws, I came up with a very bad and foolish idea that if I become a spy, I might be deported to North by the international law, so I enlisted 17 North Korean defectors and their name and address in my mobile phone and reported to the police that I collected secret information for North Korea. In the end, I was convicted of being a North Korean spy and had to serve a jail term, which won’t help me meet my family again in the North.
My family was separated by wrong national policy and my life has been gradually demolishing to complete ruins. Why do I have to live in such misery and pain, not being able to see my parents and daughter again. My heart is tearing apart.
I believe it’s more than natural and a basic human right that a person wishes to live with his/her family, and anything that prevents it is inhumane, anti-human rights, and anti-democratic. To me, freedom and prosperity, no matter how tempting, is always less than my family and home.
If you believe in human rights and if justice and democracy do exist, please help me go back to my family. I implore wholeheartedly the International Red Cross to hear my plea.
Sep. 2015.
Wishing to reunite with my family in North Korea
by Kim, Lyeunhee 김련희
Kim Ryon Hui looking into her homeland at the DMZ
Kim Ryon Hui‘s husband Ri Gum Ryong and her 21-year-old daughter Ri Gyon Gum in the north
“Why? Why can’t she come back, why do we have to go through such suffering? Why do they drag her like this, despite how she says she wants to go back, why not let her go? She has her family, husband and daughter in her country, a daughter who misses her mother, a husband who misses his wife. Do they not have heart and blood?”
Says daughter Ri Gyon Gum when interviewed.
“To my wife in South Korea, don’t forget here you have parents, a husband and daughter, and a socialist nation.
Keep on fighting until the end.
My wife is fighting until the end right now, my whole family, my whole nation. We will all get together so that she can come back. Never stop the fighting.”
Says husband Ri Gum Ryong when interviewed by the CNN
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