The Telegraph:
North Korea has warned that any of its citizens caught trying to defect to China or using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il will be branded as “war criminals” and punished accordingly.
By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
6:55AM GMT 26 Jan 2012
There are reports from within the isolated state that food supplies are again dwindling and that there has been an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border into China. Many of those that do manage to cross the frontier eventually manage to reach South Korea, where an estimated 23,000 defectors have now settled.
The Workers’ Party has issued the stern warning in an effort to deter more from attempting the already perilous journey, apparently in an effort to ensure the stability of the new regime of Kim Jong-un, who took over from his father, according to Good Friends, a South Korean relief group.
People who are caught attempting to flee the poverty and political oppression in the North, as well as those detained in China and sent back over the border, usually end up in the North’s network of hard labour camps, human rights groups have reported, while repeat offenders can expect to be executed.
Kim Jong-il died on December 17 after suffering a heart attack that North Korean media has reported was brought on by overwork. He was 69.
The regime has been weakened by years of economic mismanagement and stagnation and there are apparently fears in Pyongyang that the death of Kim could trigger public unrest.
If China didn’t protect North Korea things like this wouldn’t be happening, never forget without China protecting the North the South would have liberated their relatives a long time ago.