StatisticsThe Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that North Korea holds approximately 200,000 people in its system of concentration and detention camps, and that 400,000 people have died in these camps from torture, starvation, disease, and execution.
North Korea’s oppression and politically targeted starvation of its people collectively constitute the world’s greatest ongoing atrocity, and almost certainly the most catastrophic anywhere on earth since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. North Korea has allowed between 600,000 and 2,500,000 of its people to starve to death while its government squandered the nation’s resources on weapons and luxuries for its ruling elite. |
Kim Jong-il
He was the supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He succeeded his father and founder of the DPRK Kim Il-sung following the elder Kim's death in 1994. Kim Jong-il was the general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world. |
The camps
The first main types of camps are called the vast kwan-li-so political prison camps. There are only six of these camps known to outsiders. * Camp 14, at Kaechon, in central North Korea * Camp 15, at Yodok, in east-central North Korea * Camp 16, at Hwasong, in northeastern North Korea * Camp 18, at Kaechon, across the river from Camp 14 * Camp 22, Hoeryong, in extreme northeastern North Korea * Camp 25, Chongjin, also in the far northeast. The second classification of camps are the Labor reeducation camps, or kyo-hwa-so. In the past, kyo hwa so were used to “rehabilitate” prisoners though labor. Increasingly, however, the conditions in kyo hwa so are so harsh, and the food rations so insufficient, that many prisoners cannot survive for a year there. Lastly, the third type of concentration camp is the Regional collection and labor-training camps. These regional camps are increasingly used to punish North Koreans for economic crimes, such as unauthorized trading in food. |