It has been said that everything is brand new to those who don’t know history. Earlier this year, I was interviewed live on Arirang TV about recent “creative” escapes by North Korean refugees. The inspiration for the interview was a pair of newspaper articles in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post highlighting modern-day defection stories and portraying them as unprecedented responses to the Kim regime’s tightening grip.

One point I made during the interview is that this narrative misses a critical point: for decades, defectors have defied overwhelming odds to escape to freedom, and their stories deserve to be remembered even when reporters believe they have found something new.

The Washington Post highlighted a family that bravely escaped in a rickety boat in 2023. But in 1984, several North Korean fishermen sailed across the Sea of Japan to Japan, eventually receiving asylum in South Korea. In 1998, a family braved rough currents and North Korean patrols in a fishing boat to reach South Korea. In 2019, four defectors used a small boat to cross the East Sea.

Even under heavy surveillance, defectors have taken to the skies to escape North Korea. In 1953, Lt. No Kum-sok flew a Soviet MiG-15 jet to Gimpo Air Base in South Korea, a story later........

© The Korea Times