OSAKA -- The May 8 attempt by five North Korean family members to seek asylum at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, northeastern China, was not the first time the consulate has dealt with North Koreans fleeing their country, according to a senior representative of an Osaka-based citizens' group supporting such people.
"In the mid-1990s, the Rescue the North Korean People Urgent Action Network (RENK) verified three incidents in which North Korean families trying to flee to South Korea sought asylum at the Japanese Consulate in Shenyang," said Lee Young Hwa, who is also an associate professor of economics at Kansai University.
"One woman in one of the three families had Japanese nationality. So she was able to go to Japan and her family eventually ended up in South Korea. But we don't know what happened to the other two families," said Lee, a North Korean national living in Osaka.