I was born in July 1963 in the Songpyeong District of Chongjin City, North Hamgyeong Province.



My family was neither from the elite class nor the lowest class, but as my parents were from South Korea, our songbun – a social categorisation that ranks people according to their family’s revolutionary heritage – was low.

After graduating from middle school in 1979, I entered the military and after training I served for 11 years. The hardest part was having to march around carrying 25kg sandbags every morning and night.

Life was surrounded by strict rules. I had never heard of the phrase “human rights”.



Just like ordinary citizens, military personnel were brainwashed with the glorification of the Kim family. What differed was the intensity of the Kim Il-sung education. The strategy was to overpower the military with ideology and have victory over American imperialism.

After my time in the military ended, I was allocated a job in a mine in Musan. I wanted to go to university like my colleagues but I was not given a recommendation – my family’s songbun was not that bad, but no one had graduated from university.



After leaving the military, I joined the Party. Three years of being a candidate to join the Party gave me the opportunity to get to know my commanding officer and the secretary of the local party cell, but the mine was far away from my family so I asked them to send me to home.

At that time North Korea allowed citizens to relocate to farms if they had family there so I went back and became a farmer.

A North Korean boy works at a collective farm. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

Pigs for presents

In the early 1990s, life in rural areas was much better for workers than in the city. They had access to food distribution from farms, small plots of land and vegetable gardens. By 1995 the food shortage started to affect us after we received the order to raise a pig.

The pigs-for-presents order was given by Kim Il-sung at the end of 1988, people had to submit one 80kg animal a year to the army.

There were many households who couldn’t do it. They had no spare hands to look after the pig. Even if they did have one, it would often die of disease.

If a family could not deliver a pig they would not get their allocated distribution, so many would be forced to buy one at a market for unreasonable price.

We had no money so people would buy the pigs on credit with the promise to pay with rice and corn when it was distributed in the autumn, so people had a pig but no food for themselves.

If you did not have a pig to give you were judged, but the bigger problem was that you would not receive your distribution. Living standards declined radically after the pig order.

From 1996, the amount of food being distributed halved. It decreased by another 30% by 1997, and many died of hunger in rural areas. Around the same time people started to realise the value of money and some started selling vegetables from their farms.

All my family had died apart from my eldest child. I decided to escape North Korea so that he could live

The food shortage hit my family in 1997. My mother, my wife, and my son died of hunger that winter. The boy was always frail, he died because he could not eat properly.

All my family had died apart from my eldest child. I decided to escape North Korea so that he could live.

I had always lived in obedience to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, but the death of my family changed that. Once I had dreamt of communism being achieved, listening to the lectures of the Kim family every day – but it was only a delusion.

Rebelling against the country would only lead to death. I decided to leave.



Chinese border guards patrol the Tumen river, across from the North Korean border town of Namyang. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Escaping North Korea

I set off for the Tumen River with my young son in April 1998. There were police officers everywhere, sentries checking every road so I walked around them and reached Taehongdan. From there I crossed over to China, looking for work, sometimes begging.

Every day I heard news of China sending defectors back to North Korea. The fear was infectious. I became very sensitive. I could not sleep. Finding work was hard because I had a young child. I would work but only for food.

Despite the hardships, I tried to listen to South Korean broadcasts every night and sometimes people who had worked there would tell me stories. There was a programme called “To the People of the Workers’ Party” – the presenters were knowledgeable about the reality of North Korea.

This is when I realised South Korea was not what I thought it would be. I decided to try to get there.

I trusted the broadcast because it was describing accurately what was going on, it did not criticise the DPRK it aimed to enlighten the people. It spoke the truth. The programme no longer exists but back then it aired at 4pm from Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation.

Every day, North Koreans would get caught by Chinese security officials and sent back, officers were searching everywhere.

I felt that both of us would die if we got caught, so I decided to try and get to South Korea first and left my son in the hands of a Korean Chinese person. I said goodbye to my son in May 1999.

The winter journey through the Mongolian desert was so tough that it amazes me even now that I was able to cross it. I had to survive in order to see my son again. I was determined.

I settled in South Korea in 2000. The government gave me $9,300 as a settlement fee. I used it to look for my child. I found him in March 2001 and planned to bring him to South Korea.

My son was left by himself in the desert and died on my birthday.

I found out that a group of people travelled with my son, but the guide was caught by a Chinese officer and the group dispersed. My son was left by himself in the desert and died on my birthday.

In 2003, I asked the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs to bring back his body, but the government refused because he was not a South Korean citizen. I went to the Mongolian embassy and sent a letter to the Mongolian president and prime minister. It was published in a magazine called Defectors in September that year.

A few months later I was told I could enter Mongolia to bring my son to South Korea. The memorial service was held in the Unification Observatory in Paju. My son was in my arms two years after his death.

When I see the experts talking of unification, predicting that will happen within a few years, I am filled with disgust. They talk as if they are fortune tellers

I always feel guilty for not giving him a better life. It has weakened my body, but I cannot stay still. I started helping other defectors hoping that nobody else would have a life like mine.

Balloons for freedom

Now I am involved with sending balloons to North Korea. Many people do this, but when I started I was by myself. I bought the materials and would send the balloons at night if the wind direction was suitable



It has become easier as there are now volunteers and donations. My health is frail and I want to stop but can’t because it brings freedom to North Koreans.

When I see the experts talking of unification, predicting that will happen within a few years I am filled with disgust. They talk as if they are fortune tellers.



We are no longer in the 70s or 90s. North Koreans today can listen to broadcasts from other countries and watch television. Unification can be brought forward when we share the idea of democracy.



The worshipping of the Kim family has come to an end. The light of unification will soon enter the country and people will be curious about what is happening in other places. I used to send out fliers about the inhumane acts of the Kim family. Now, with the changing climate, I send fliers encouraging people to fight for freedom.

My wish is for North Korea to know what freedom is and for people to live a life of liberty.



Ryu Ki-ho is a pseudonym to protect the writer’s identity

Translated by Su-min Hwang. A full version of this memoir is available on the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea. It is part of a series which aims to provide a platform for “North Korean agency and voice beyond the system’s control”