Number of DPRK escapees to South Korea drops sharply — Asharq Al-Awsat
South Korea recorded a further decline in the number of people who escaped from the DPRK: only 63 North Koreans arrived in the country in the first half of 2026. This is more than one-third lower than in the same period of 2025, Asharq Al-Awsat reports, citing South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.
The total number of North Koreans who reached South Korea over the past six years is lower than the number of people who typically arrived in a single year during previous decades. In 2009, the number of such arrivals exceeded 2,900, and throughout the following decade it remained above 1,000 annually.
Tighter border controls
Experts primarily link the decline to the DPRK’s increased isolation under Kim Jong Un’s rule. After coming to power in 2011, he began restricting informal trade and migration ties along the approximately 1,415-kilometer border with China. This section was an important first stage of the route for most escapees.
DPRK authorities have installed fences, surveillance cameras and strips of sand along the border, where the footprints of those crossing it can be seen. Andrei Lankov, a DPRK expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, called this system “a real Soviet-style border security system.”
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Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior researcher at the 38 North project of the Stimson Center think tank, said that China has reportedly installed hundreds of facial-recognition cameras, increased the number of patrol boats, and established or plans to establish new deportation centers along the border with the DPRK.
Access to information
According to the UN, approximately 34,500 escapees from the DPRK have arrived in South Korea since 1998 — a small share of North Korea’s population of 26.6 million. Fyodor Tertitskiy, a lecturer at Korea University in Seoul, stressed that these people are the main source of information about the situation in the DPRK for researchers and South Korean intelligence.
Chae Yun Seo, a former DPRK resident who escaped in 2019 through China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, said that it is now impossible to directly take relatives out of North Korea. According to Amnesty International, since 2020, possessing foreign media materials in the DPRK has been punishable by years of forced labor, while their large-scale distribution may carry a death sentence.
