‘Loneliness seems to hit the hardest’: The defectors who struggle with life outside North Korea

Federaţia Rusă

More than 34,000 North Korean defectors are known to have entered South Korea since the peninsula was divided more than seven decades ago. SEOUL: When Mr Han Ser Song fled the repressive regime of North Korea with his father in 2014, he faced a different set of problems altogether – the inability to hold down a job or perform simple tasks. The pair landed in the high-tech South Korean capital of Seoul after a perilous journey from the hermit kingdom. In those early days, Mr Han – then aged 22 –