North to South (Via. Hungary)

Korean businessman defects to South Korea from Hungary

A North Korean businessman and his family who sought refuge at the South Korean Embassy in Hungary have arrived in South Korea, a news report said Tuesday.

The four North Koreans sought asylum in the South Korean Embassy in Budapest last Wednesday and had been under protection at a third location outside of the embassy, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed government sources. The North Koreans weren’t identified.

The Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately comment on the reported defection, and the Hungarian Embassy in Seoul also said it had not received any information on the case.

North Korea had requested Hungary not to send the would-be defectors to South Korea, Yonhap reported.

Several North Korean diplomats and senior officials have defected to South Korea in the recent past.

Nearly 7,700 North Koreans have defected to the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War _ with more than 5,700 of those arriving since 2002. A total of 1,387 defectors arrived in the South last year, down from a record 1,894 in 2004.

And here in the States we think our naturalization process is tedious. Be glad it does not involve risking life and limb to flee to an intermediary state and try to enter a tightly guarded embassy.