N. K. delegates, refugees argue over concentration camps. October. 24, 2014 06:42. .

"There is no such thing as a concentration camp for political prisoners. It is a lie." (North Korean delegates)

"The fact that I spent 28 years there is the clear evidence." (North Korean refugee)

North Korean diplomats waged a verbal battle on Wednesday (local time) with Citizens` Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, a refugee support group in Seoul, at a forum on the communist state`s dire human rights situation held at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The forum was co-hosted by the human rights group and the U.N. missions of Australia, Botswana and Panama.

North Korea sent a delegation of nine, including Kim Song, counselor for North Korean Mission to the United Nations. North Korean delegates` presence at an official U.N. special meeting on the country`s human rights issues is extremely rare.

During the forum, the biggest attention was drawn to Kim Hye-sook, 53, who spent 28 years at Camp No. 18, a concentration camp for political prisoners, before defecting to South Korea. She gave vivid accounts of the hideous situations under which she lived at the camp from age 13 to 41.

"I lived there for 28 years without knowing why I had to be there," she said. "I lived on porridges made of corn flours and grass. I was so hungry that I thought I was going to be starved to death." Some of the participants in the forum were tearful.

Jeong Kwang-il, who represents an association of the families of people victimized by North Korean concentration camps, also gave his testimony, asking the U.N. to pass a resolution on the North`s human rights situation to help North Korean residents live freely as soon as possible.

The North Korean delegates strongly protested, however, claiming that the defectors` accounts were aimed at attacking the North Korean regime.

Michael Kirby, a former Australian judge who led the independent U.N. inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea, pressed the North, demanding that Pyongyang take back its reference of North Korean refugees who testified to the COI as "human scums." He also urged the U.N. Security Council to take the North Korean leadership to the International Criminal Court.