Shocking revelations are being made by former prisoners and high-ranking defectors from North Korea, exposing a systematic network of human experiments on political prisoners, children, the disabled and women.
According to foreign media, the descriptions are horrific and touch on the function of concentration camps not simply as torture centers, but as death laboratories.
Kwon Hyuk, former security director at the infamous Camp 22, gave a 2004 BBC testimony, describing the gassing of an entire family inside an experimental chamber without hesitation. "The parents were trying to keep their children alive until their last breath," he said, describing the horror of the process, A2 CNN reports.
Sun Ok-li, a seven-year former prisoner at the Kaechon camp, recounts how she was asked to distribute poisoned cabbage to 50 female prisoners. Within minutes, they all suffered from uncontrollable vomiting of blood and died, likely as part of a biological experiment. As she put it: “I wonder how it is possible for one person to kill another person like this.”
The accounts of these testimonies are corroborated by other defectors, such as Im Cheon-yong, a former member of the country's special forces. According to him, the military conducted experiments with biological and chemical weapons, first on rats and then on humans, to train officers how to kill with these substances. He himself fled to the West after seeing disabled children being used as experimental animals.
Another chilling element is the reference to the purchase of disabled children from their families for use in experiments. If the parents refused, they were threatened with imprisonment in camps.
As the Daily Mail reports, the sick network appears to be backed by the regime itself. Even high-ranking officials in North Korea's Ministry of Public Security are alleged to have been blackmailing families into handing over their relatives as potential test subjects. Other stories describe forced hysterectomies on women with dwarfism, while babies born inside the camps are executed on the spot by guards.
Although Pyongyang characterizes these revelations as "nonsense" and "propaganda," the abundance of recorded testimony and evidence adds further weight to the mystery. As of 2023, South Korea's Unification Ministry collected more than 500 testimonies from defectors, documenting in a 450-page report the atrocities allegedly committed by Kim Jong-un's regime.
Dozens of organizations are calling for independent inspectors to investigate North Korea's camps, but the regime categorically denies any access, writes A2 CNN.
As BBC researcher Olenka Frenkiel reports: "The truth about what is happening behind North Korea's borders may be darker than our conscience can bear. But we must recognize it." (A2 Televizion)
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