Two brothers spent a decade plotting their escape from North Korea – an audacious plan conceived by their late father, whose ashes they carried as they crept toward a boat moored in the shadows. There were guards nearby, and no second chances.
It was May 6, 2023. A three-day spring storm churned over the Yellow Sea, cloaking their movements. Kim Il-hyeok and Kim Yi-hyeok gathered their seven relatives – including women who just tiptoed through a minefield – as they traced their route one last time.
Among the passengers were Kim Yi-hyeok’s two children, ages 4 and 6, hidden in burlap sacks. Kim Il-hyeok’s wife, five months pregnant, reluctantly agreed to join.
“My wife did not want to defect,” Kim Il-hyeok told CNN. “She was especially worried about doing it while pregnant.”
“I kept trying to persuade her, saying we needed to go to South Korea for the sake of the child. I asked her if she wanted our children to grow up in a country like this.”
“In the end, my wife was convinced, and we decided to defect together.”
South Korean officials confirmed details of Kim’s defection, and his descriptions of hardships faced by North Koreans mirror numerous accounts defectors shared with CNN.
Nine people fled that night. Yet only eight are alive today, carrying their stories forward in South Korea.
It was the family patriarch who first planted the idea of escaping North Korea more than 10 years ago, suggesting freedom might come by sea, Kim Il-hyeok began.
“Our family originally had nothing to do with boats or fishing, and we lived inland, far from the sea,” he explained. “My father said, ‘There is no hope in this society, there’s no way to change it … There is a vast, free world out there. Let’s go to South Korea.’”
So, he sent his younger son to find work along the coast.
“After about four to five years, my brother learned the trade and got his own boat,” noted Kim Il-hyeok. Over time, the brother earned the trust of party loyalists and built close relationships with local security officers, aided by bribes.
Pyongyang’s maritime patrols serve as gray sentinels of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime, slicing through the Yellow Sea with cold, unyielding purpose: the interception of defectors.
To escape North Korea, the Kims would need to evade patrol boats and cross what is known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) – a tense, disputed maritime boundary between North and South Korea.
The waters near the border are rich with sea life, but few dare to fish there because the area is heavily restricted and closely watched. The brothers used this to their advantage, posing as fishermen as they scouted for gaps in patrol coverage.
“The simulations went like this: if we sail toward the NLL, the North Korean military might chase us,” Kim Il-hyeok said matter-of-factly. “If they do, how quickly would they detect us? We calculated everything.”
“Patrols would come faster during the day and slower at night, especially on bad weather days or on days when a maritime warning was issued. We tested this several times. When we were caught by patrols, they treated us as if we were major criminals.”
When Kim and his brother were interrogated over the years, they recounted the same story: They had bribed guards along the coast, begging them to let them fish near the NLL; the abundant catch was too good to ignore.
The guards corroborated the brothers’ stories, again, and again. The Kims took their boat near the maritime border but always came back. It was an alibi played to perfection – a careful act that masked their impending escape.
The Kims were considered well-off in North Korea, where international humanitarian organizations estimate more than half the population lives in poverty.
“My father used to trade antiques, gold, and even sold coal transported by train,” Kim Il-hyeok told CNN.
He and his wife had a large TV, one officially registered with North Korean authorities. Yet they also owned a smaller one, bought in secret, smuggled by traders from China.
From their home near the South Korean border the Kims could watch 10 channels broadcasting from Seoul, Kim recalled.
“We had a makeshift copper wire antenna that we stored crumpled up and would unfold when needed,” he added. “We’d move it around the room in different directions until we found a spot with a signal.”
Kim described how watching that TV was like looking into a different world: seeing homes with electricity at night, plentiful food, free movement across South Korea, hot water. There was a sense of possibility unleashed.
Kim’s father died before the dream of escape became reality. He left his money to his children, an inheritance that grew the Kims’ wealth and shielded them from desperation.
“From 2015 to 2020, I ran a business mainly dealing with home appliances,” he said.
Then came the pandemic, which changed Kim’s trajectory and grew his savings.
“I started selling vegetables, fruits, and agricultural products for people’s survival. During that time, many people starved to death,” Kim continued.
“Every day, I heard stories of someone dying, being robbed, or being assaulted. I once bought rice for 4,000 won (about $4.44) per kilogram, and after just one night, I could sell it for 8,000 won ($8.89) or even 10,000 won ($11.11).”
“My business thrived. I wasn’t the only one. Other merchants like me made even more money, while those who had nothing starved even more.”
By May 2023, Kim Il-hyeok’s wife was in her second trimester, and time was running out to find an escape window before the baby’s birth.
As the Yellow Sea turned rough with a spring storm, the Kims saw their chance. Rain battered the coast, radar visibility dropped – and under that veil, they made their move.
To set the escape plan in motion, the brothers paid off night watchmen, claiming they wanted to embark on a most improbable night of fishing. The brothers would pick up the women in secret, further along the coast.
“In North Korea, men can board a ship, but women cannot,” Kim explained. “Legally, if a woman boards a ship, she is immediately suspected of having impure intentions, assumed to be attempting to defect.”
To reach the rendezvous point, the women had to cross a minefield – a brutal fixture of North Korea’s landscape. But after years of careful preparation, they had memorized a safe route, tracing it in their minds long before that night.
Kim Il-hyeok’s pregnant wife crossed the landmine-strewn terrain alongside his mother, sister-in-law, and Kim Yi-hyeok’s mother-in-law, all reaching the boat at the shoreline.
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