The crowd that gathered this month to lay North Korean-bornLee Jeong-Ae to rest mourned more than just her death from lung cancer at age35.
Lee died only three weeks after settling here, after aharrowing journey that highlights the shadowy no-man’s-land in which North Koreandefectors live, often for decades, without access to even the most basic healthcare or legal protection.
Lee and her husband, who uses the pseudonym Shin to protectfamily still in North Korea,lived with their son in Younseon, North Hamgyongprovince, near the Chinese border. Shin was working in trade with China when thecouple decided to flee political repression and poverty in their tightly closedhomeland in mid-2006.
“I was the one who first said we should get out of North Korea. Mywife was initially afraid that our family members left behind would suffer ifwe defected, and she also knew she would miss the hometown where she had grownup and would feel insecure,” he said.
“We didn’t know if we’d live or die, and it was obvious thatwe’d be in a sea of trouble if we were caught in China. My wife told me to leavefirst, get established in China,and then bring her and our son along as well. But I couldn’t leave them behind,so I persuaded her to leave together,” he said.
The couple took poison with them so they could commitsuicide rather than risk repatriation, he said.
The family fled through China,Laos, and Burma and finally Thailand, where they remained fortwo years while Lee’s health worsened dramatically. In Laos, he said, “we were in much better shape”than the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans believed to be living secretly,and in perpetual fear, in China.
Grim diagnosis
“We’d known she was ill since 2006. We went to a hospitalafter arriving in Thailandin 2006, but never got a proper diagnosis,” Shin said of his wife. In July2007, doctors at a second hospital diagnosed metastatic, terminal lung cancer.
In September, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkoktold them their U.S.refugee status had been approved, but they would have to wait.
“People around us kept advising that we should just go to South Korea, asking: ‘Why would you want to goto America,and have a hard time?’ I just told them: ‘Even if I am to die, I will die inthe United States.Americais my firm and final choice, and please do not even bring up any othercountry.’”
“We had no good news, and she began to sufferpsychologically, and her overall condition worsened…She was so anxious to cometo the United States, andshe said: ‘If we go to America,I know there’s hope for a cure.’ Even I said to myself: ‘If we make it to America,they’ll be able to treat her cancer.’ We hoped for a miracle, but this terribleillness is merciless.”
Alone in a Thaihospital
Lee remained alone in a Thai hospital, too, for three monthswhen Shin was detained by Thai police as he gave directions to a group of NorthKorean defectors.
“My wife was alone. She had nobody to cook for her or lookafter her, she could barely eat Thai food…and she had nobody to translate forher at the hospital. Her condition degraded dramatically.”
Finally, in February 2008, 16 North Korean defectors werecleared to leave Thailandfor the United States—withone spot allocated for the Shin family. But U.S. law requires that refugeefamilies stay together, so the spot went to a single North Korean.
“I still think that, should my wife had been given that spotand allowed to come to the United States before me and our son, she might havehad a chance to live. When we arrived in America, the doctors told her thatshe had only a couple of weeks left.”
“My wife said, ‘I want to die in America… Freedom, that’s what Iwant. There is no other reason. I choose the United States because it is anation of laws that fully safeguards human rights and freedom.’ And, sincescience and technology are so advanced in America, she also thought thattheir might be hope for a cure as well.”
Asylum at last
The family finally reached New York Cityon April 14 and settled in Richmondthree days later. Lee died of metastatic lung cancer on May 7.
Yoo Shin-Hye, a nurse at the Medical College of VirginiaHospital who looked after Lee at the end of her illness, said Lee worried mostabout leaving her son. The doctors who treated her cried when they learned shehad died.
“She fought hard and clung on to life. ‘I’ve been through somuch hardship to get here… I can’t just disappear into the night withoutknowing this life. I can’t just leave my little son behind,’” Yoo said.
At her memorial service at the Emmaus Korean United Methodist Church, mourners satquietly before her photograph. Her husband couldn’t be consoled.
Under a law passed under the Bush administration, 53 NorthKorean refugees have now been admitted to the United States as refugees.
Original reporting byJung Min Noh for RFA’s Korean service. Edited by Sooil Chun. Korean servicedirector: Kwang-Chool Lee. Translated by GrigoreScarlatoiu. Written andproduced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.