N. Korean refugees on a hunger strike
More than 400 North Koreans being held in a Thai immigration facility have launched a hunger strike, demanding that they be sent to South Korea, Thai police and an activist group said.
Thai immigration police Lt. Col. Pricha Daengsirirat said South Korean diplomats came to help negotiate with the refugees at the detention center in Bangkok, the capital. The officer said delays in the resettlement were not the fault of Thai authorities.
The 100 men and 314 women have been in the cramped detention center for about three months, Lee Ho-taeg, an official of a South Korean group that aids North Korean asylum seekers, said in Seoul.
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