Ward 49

Just another name in to remember in the long list of camps in North Korea

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The North Korean government rounds up disabled people and sends them away from the capital Pyongyang to special camps, where they are sorted by their handicap and subjected to “subhuman conditions,” a U.N. report released Thursday said.

Author Viti Muntarbhorn, special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea , cited reports from defectors who said the mentally disabled are sent to camps known as “Ward 49.” Other camps exist for dwarfs, who may marry but are barred from having children.

“To date, the situation facing those with disabilities has presented a very disconcerting picture,” Muntarbhorn wrote in the report detailing what he said were rampant human rights abuses in North Korea.

Those violations include torture, refusal to give food aid to citizens and harsh punishment of those trying to flee the country, the report said.

North Korea: The Aryan Nation under the guise of a Stalinist State.