Location

The camp is located near Chon­gori , a little village in Musan-ri, Hoeryong

Hoeryong

Hoeryŏng is a city in North Hamgyŏng Province, North Korea. It is opposite Jilin Province, China, with the Tumen River in between. Sanhe , in Longjing prefecture, is the closest Chinese town across the river. Hoeryŏng is said to be the birthplace of Kim Il Sung's first wife and Kim Jong Il's...

 county, at the road and railroad (about 2½ km northeast of Chon­gori station) almost halfway between Hoeryong and Chongjin

Chongjin

Ch'ŏngjin is the capital of North Korea's North Hamgyŏng Province and the country's third largest city. From 1960 to 1967 and again from 1977 to 1985, Ch'ŏngjin was administered separately from North Hamgyŏng as a Directly Governed City...

, Hamgyŏng-pukto province in North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

. Chon­gori camp is situated at the end of a small valley 2.5 km (1.5 mi) southeast from the main valley in Pungsan-ri and Chon­gori.

Description

Chon­gori concentration camp is a large prison compound, around 350 m (1050 feet) long and 150 m (450 feet) wide. The main section is surrounded by an 8 m (26 feet) high wall, while the branch offices are surrounded with barbed wire and an electrified fence. In 2005 there used to be around 2000 prisoners, mostly usual criminals, but often with high penalties for desperate offences, e. g. stealing food. They are guarded by around 300 prison guards with machine guns. From 2006 on the number of prisoners increased very much, as many defectors deported from China were arrested in Chon­gori camp. Theoretically prisoners should be released after reeducation through labor and serving their sentence. But as the prison sentences are very long and the conditions are very harsh, many do not survive their prison sentences.

Purpose

Main purpose of Chon­gori camp is to punish people for usual crimes or political crimes, e. g. illegal border crossing. But the prisoners are also used as slave workers, who have to do hard and dangerous work 14 hours a day. There is a copper ore mine, a logging section and some smaller factories in the camp.

Human Rights Situation

The prisoners have to live in crowded, dirty, insect-infested rooms without heating, while there is just one washing room for 1000 prisoners. Because of this horrible hygienic situation often loads of prisoners die from infectious diseases (e. g. 190 prisoners died in summer 2003).

The prisoners get only 140 grams of rice three times a day, while being forced to do hard slave labor, e. g. logging with iron chains. Often prisoners are killed or crippled in work accidents, as they have to do dangerous work with primitive means. Prisoners are so hungry, that they eat even grass and corn in cow feces. Lee Jun Ha estimates that are around 30 – 40 people died from malnutrition, work accidents or torture each month and were burnt on a nearby mountain.

The prisoners are regularly subject to beatings, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrarily at the guard’s mercy. In case a prisoner breaks a rule he is tortured and confined many days or weeks in a solitary cell, only 1 m² (3 feet square) large, where he could not stretch his legs. Summary executions were carried out several times per year in case of escape attempts.

Prisoners (Witnesses)

Lee Jun Ha (2000–2005 in Chon­gori) was imprisoned, because he accidentally killed his uncle.

External links

• Daily NK: Prison Tales – Prison memoir series by Lee Jun Ha
• One Free Korea: Camp 12 - Chon­gori camp with satellite photographs
• Korea Institute for National Unification - White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (page 179 and 443)
• Chosun Ilbo: N. Korea in brutal crackdown on defectors – Many defectors arrested and deported to Chon­gori camp
• Committee for Human Rights in North Korea – Overview on other North Korean Prison Camps with Testimonies and Satellite Photographs