(123rf)

North Korea is forcing political prisoners to work at some of its high-risk nuclear facilities, a North Korean defector was quoted as telling South Korean authorities.

A former Pyongyang resident in her 40s who defected in 2019 said in an in-depth interview with authorities in Seoul that North Korea was sending its political prisoners to labor camps close to nuclear sites, according to a recent report by the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification.

“The levels of radiation at these places are so harmful that no one wants to go there. So the authorities are sending prisoners there to die,” she said in the interview.

She said that as people avoid working near nuclear sites due to fears of radiation exposure, the military has started offering various benefits to encourage enlistment in the areas.

For instance, she said that the length of mandatory military service for people who serve at and around the nuclear sites is cut to five years from the usual 10. In exchange for doing their mandatory military service at nuclear test sites, people are also given opportunities to enroll at universities and are allowed to join the Workers’ Party of Korea.

“But all the kids who serve there die within a couple of years. The radioactive exposure is harmful to the human body,” she said.

She said she decided to leave North Korea after learning the authorities were going to send her and her children to work at nuclear sites over her husband’s defection.

Starting last year, South Korea began testing North Korean defectors who lived near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site for possible radiation exposure, according to Seoul’s Ministry of Unification, which oversees inter-Korean affairs.