Yodok concentration camp

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Yodŏk (Korean 요덕, also romanized Yodeok or Yoduk) is a political concentration camp in North Korea. It is located in Yodŏk-gun (county) in South Hamgyong Province, at 39°36′42.59″N, 126°50′56.85″E. The official name is Kwan-li-so (reeducation center) No. 15.

According to the U.S. State Department estimate, 150,000 to 200,000 political prisoners are being held there. In the 1990s an estimated 30,000 prisoners were in the lifetime area, and around 16,500 prisoners in the revolutionizing zone (many of them family members of prisoners and people repatriated from Japan).

Yodŏk camp has a lifetime-imprisonment "total-control zone", but also "revolutionizing zones", from which prisoners are sometimes released. That is why there are testimonies by refugees about Yodŏk. The revolutionizing zones include Ripsŏk-ri (립석리), Kuŭp-ri (구읍리) for Korean families from Japan, and Taesuk-ri (대숙리) for singles.^[1] Other sections include Pyongjŏn-ri (평전리), a punishment or detention area within the prison camp called Ryongpyŏng-ri (룡평리), a secluded killing area called Kouek, and other areas for prisoners serving lifetime sentences.

The whole encampment is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence measuring 3 to 4 meters and walls 2 to 3 meters tall topped with electrical wire. Along the fence there are watchtowers, and patrolled by 1,000 guards armed with automatic rifles, hand grenades and guard dogs.

Labor operations at the Kuŭp-ri section of Yodŏk include a gypsum quarry and a re-opened gold mine, where some 800 men worked and accidents happen frequently. There were also textile plants, distilleries and a coppersmith workshop.

Kang Chol-Hwan, prisoner from 1977 to 1987, estimates around 4% of prisoners in the Kuŭp-ri revolutionizing zone died per year, mostly because of malnutrition and disease. Although complete families (including children) were imprisoned based on the claimed guilt of one member, any sexual contact was not allowed and pregnancies were forcibly aborted. Kang described life in Yodŏk camp in the book The Aquariums of Pyongyang.

Lee Young-kuk, prisoner from 1995 to 1999, estimates that around 20% of prisoners in the Taesuk-ri revolutionizing zone died per year, while new prisoners arrived each month. As cells were not heated, most prisoners suffered from frostbitten ears and swollen legs during the winter months.

Both revolutionizing areas have public executions by hanging and shootings for prisoners who had tried to escape or who had been caught “stealing” food. In at least one case an attempted escapee was tied and dragged behind a car in front of the assembled prisoners until dead.

In 2004, a Japanese television station aired what it said was footage [1] showing scenes from the camp. [2]

1 Former prisoners
2 Notes
3 See also
4 Further reading

[edit] Former prisoners

Tae-Jin Kim
Jung Sung San
Lee Young Kuk
Kang Chol-hwan
Hyuk Ahn

[edit] Notes

^ The names 구읍리, 립석리, 대숙리, 룡평리, 평전리 are taken from 지형형태 및 크기. NKGulag.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-29. The ri are former administrative divisions of Ryodŏk-gun.