Mere days ago, Oh Chungsung made a mad dash to the South Korean border under fire to escape the clutches of the misguided regime. And he made it, but not without taking a few shots.
Along with treating him for his gunshot wounds, doctors also discovered he had Hepatitis B, tuberculosis, and a gut full of parasites; the latter being some new details which emerged for their soldiers just a few weeks ago.
After several surgeries, he’s awake and alert and detailing his life.
But along with those details, we can’t help but remember Lee Wi-ryeok; another North Korean defector. Lee Wi-ryeok gave us horrible details of what life was like in orphanages in the 1990s in North Korea, where and when he grew up.
In fact, from an interview with UPI: “After I came to South Korea, I was amazed to learn tuberculosis is a disease that can be treated,” he told reporters. “The most serious illness you can get is probably tuberculosis. If you get tuberculosis, there is no answer. You just die if you get sick at the orphanage.”
“If a cow excreted kernels of corn in the form of diarrhea, we would rinse them out and eat those,” Lee said, adding that the children also ate lice.
That’s not all… the children would seriously eat anything that they could find, even lice.
“When you bit into the lice, they would burst with blood,” he revealed, explaining the children thought it would be a waste not to eat the lice that would sometimes crawl in their hair. The children also stole food, but doing so was extremely risky and dangerous, Lee said. He told reporters that many orphaned children died of disease, malnutrition, and starvation.
And this is really just one story from many defectors but most reports remain the same. It’s terrible, horrible, and oppressive. And you better believe that the Kim family isn’t suffering in the same way.
