North Korea yesterday confirmed that it had detained two US journalists along the border with China earlier this week, amid tensions in the region over Pyongyang’s plans for a rocket launch.
The US State Department had expressed concern over the fate of the two women, who are believed to have been taken into custody by border guards patrolling the Tumen river, a common escape route for those fleeing the North.
“Two Americans were detained on March 17 while illegally intruding into the territory of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] by crossing the DPRK-China border,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a three-line dispatch. “A competent organ is now investigating the case.”
Diplomatic sources and media reports identified the two women as Taiwanese-American Laura Ling (凌志美) and Euna Lee, a Korean-American, who work for the San Francisco-based online news outlet Current TV, which was founded by former US vice president Al Gore and tycoon Joel Hyatt.
A diplomatic source said the two were held by security guards over “suspected border violations” after being caught on Tuesday shooting video on the North’s side of the river.
A third member of the crew, cameraman Mitch Koss, and a guide eluded capture but were being held in China, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Friday. Their whereabouts were unclear.
Laura Ling’s mother, Mary Ling (王美燕), yesterday told reporters she was extremely anxious after learning that North Korea had detained her daughter.
She refused to say anything more to the media, saying that the timing was not right.
The family emigrated from Taiwan to the US several years ago and now lives in Los Angeles.
Laura Ling’s older sister, Lisa Ling (凌志慧), a former co-host of the American TV talk show The View and now a correspondent for National Geographic Channel’s Explorer, has declined to comment.
Tales about life on the run from repressive North Korea — women who end up at the mercy of human traffickers, children who grow up in hiding — had drawn the team of US reporters to the border.
“Spent the day interviewing young N. Koreans who escaped their country. Too many sad stories,” Laura Ling wrote on her Twitter page.
The Reverend Chun Ki-won of the Seoul-based Durihana Mission, a Christian group that helps defectors, said Laura Ling and Lee contacted him three months ago asking for help organizing a trip to China to report on North Korean refugees.
“I exchanged e-mails with the journalists for about three months to coordinate their itineraries, to discuss the news and to give them advice,” he said by telephone on Friday from the US.
Chun said he also warned them about the dangers of reporting in the border area.
Their first stop: Seoul.
“On plane headed to S Korea,” Laura Ling, 32, wrote on her Twitter page on March 10.
Chun said they met at his Seoul office the next day, and he helped arrange for them to meet with defectors in South Korea and China.
The Current TV team then hit the road again.
“At Seoul airport grubbing on bibimbap & kimchee. Heading to the China/NKorea border. Hoping my kimchee breath will ward off all danger,” Laura Ling wrote on Friday the 13th.
Chun said the journalists headed to the Chinese city of Yanji, across the border from North Korea’s far northeastern corner, where they planned to interview women forced by human traffickers to strip for online customers.
They also planned to meet with children of defectors, Chun said.
Many children who grow up on the run in China live in legal limbo, unable even to attend school, according to a 2008 Human Rights Watch report. Chun said his group works to help them get asylum.
“Missing home,” Laura Ling wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Chun said he spoke to the women by phone early the next morning. They said they were heading to the Chinese border town of Dandong, 800km from Yangji, and then on to the city of Shenyang.
That was the last he heard from them.
In Beijing, an official at the North Korean Embassy refused to comment on the reported detentions.
“If our people took them away, they must have done something that made our people take them into custody,” he said. He did not give his name or title, citing embassy policy.
“How do we know whether they crossed into [North Korea] by mistake or were involved in some hostile activities?” he asked.
Washington is in contact with North Korea about the two detained journalists, US State Department officials said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton “is engaged on this matter right now,” spokesman Robert Wood told reporters on Friday. “There is a lot of diplomacy going on. There have been a number of contacts made.”
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