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Political Prison Camp No16 is high in the mountains of North Korea – and it is without doubt one of the most evil places on earth.

A former guard at the communist hell-hole has detailed a regime of grisly executions and cruelty that bring to mind Hitler’s concentration camps and the horror of Auschwitz.

The prison has existed since the 1970s but is not on any official maps and little news of what goes on there reaches the outside world.

It was named last week in a ­shocking 400-page United Nations dossier on human rights abuses in the secretive state .

UN investigators were shown sketches like the ones on this page, drawn by former ­inmates and depicting savage Nazi-style punishments and executions in dictator Kim Jung Un’s feared camps.

More appalling details about life at Camp 16 were given to the Sunday People at the Surrey offices of a newspaper for Korean ex-pats.

Its editor Joo Il-Kim escaped from North Korea in 2005.

He introduced our reporter to “Mr Lee”, a former soldier who is haunted by his experiences.

Lee is not his real name. He has to keep that secret to protect his family from reprisals.

The prison, also known as Hwasong camp, is home to 20,000 political prisoners and ­covers 200 square miles.

Thousands of people sent there have died or have simply “disappeared”.

(Image: Google)

Mr Lee was sent to guard the ­notorious gulag – although escape was impossible due to the rugged terrain and its remote position.

He recalled having to watch one man’s execution.

He said: “I can still see his face. I wake up in the night thinking of it. I’ll remember it until I die.

“The prisoner came in and was greeted by a man sitting behind a desk.

“He was asked some ­basic questions, then told to leave through a door behind a curtain at the back of the room.

"Two guards were ­waiting.

“One wrapped a thick rubber cord around the man’s neck while the other tightened it.

“He was strangled and his body thrown into a hole at the back of the room, almost like a well.

“I have no idea how many ­bodies were in there.”

Executions were just part of the brutality.

Mr Lee said: “We would get political prisoners, the elite, government ministers.

(Image: Reuters)

“They arrived with their ­families, in nice clothes and ­looking well fed. But they would be stripped of their possessions and then split up.

"They would never see each other again.”

The harsh conditions soon took a toll on new inmates, who endured hours of physical labour in temperatures well below ­freezing and on a meagre diet.

Mr Lee said: “Their bones would show through their skin and their clothes would hang off them. Prisoners were all isolated.

"They lived in tiny stone houses the size of a cupboard with a dirt floor and grass roof.”

He went on: “They get up at 4am and walk seven miles to the farm where they worked.

“Temperatures could be -25C.

“They had to ask for food and it would just be potatoes. Sometimes they ate grass.”

Mr Kim said of life in the camps: “Everyone is spying on everyone and taking what they can just to stay alive.

“People sew pockets in the lining of their clothes to hide food. Food is precious in the camps.

"Rations are basic, hardly enough to stay alive.

“You hear of people eating rats and snakes just to survive. One person was even eating ants.”

On top of the starvation and ­back-breaking labour, there was ever-present fear and violence.

(Image: Sonja Horsman)

Mr Lee said: “It was as easy as you and me sitting here talking. It happened every day.

“People were hit, beaten. They just dropped and were left lying there. No one fought back. No one had the energy.”

He admitted: “I didn’t feel guilty. We were given training, like brainwashing, and told not to feel sympathy.”

Mr Lee insisted he did not carry out any brutality . But he saw plenty.

He recalled: “I worked as a driver and every so often government people arrived to carry out ­executions.

"We knew by the number we picked up how many prisoners were going die.”

He said guards swapped stories about killings in other camps. Sadistic methods including ­stoning were described.

Mr Lee recalled: “At one camp, prisoners were taken out into the fields and told to dig holes.

“They were told to stand on the edge and were hit on the back of the head with a hammer.”

He believes the brutality – which he has reported to the UN – still goes on.

He said: “I saw incredible suffering and it will get worse. I just hope telling my story helps change things.”