By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea via Southeast Asian nations has steadily increased in recent months, a government source said Wednesday.
In January, Thailand asked South Korea to dispatch North Korean defectors here as the country has difficulty accommodating them because of a lack of facilities he said.
``Our government accepted the offer from Thailand and a group of 70 North Korean defectors have been flown in as a group. Previously we brought in some 50 North Koreans,'' the source said, asking not to be named.
But he denied a report that a Southeast Asian nation had demanded Seoul bring in hundreds of North Koreans.
According to a news report, Thailand asked South Korea last January to take hundreds of North Korean defectors into its custody and transport them to Seoul, saying its immigration facilities are overcrowded.
To accommodate increased North Korean defectors, the government is working to expand the capacity of the Hanawon resettlement center, the source said.
The facility, in which some 400 North Korean defectors are housed, will be expanded to accommodate 600 by the end of the year.
The Seoul government maintains its policy of bringing in North Korean defectors in small groups in secret.
``The most important factor is the security of defectors,'' an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. ``Furthermore, our capacity for accommodating North Korean defectors is also limited.''
More than 13,000 North Korean defectors have arrived in the South in recent years.
Thailand has emerged as the most favored shelter for those who flee the impoverished North amid China's crackdown on them. The Thai government has been relatively lenient toward North Korean defectors from a humanitarian viewpoint.
Sources said more than 2,500 North Korean defectors settled in South Korea last year alone and about half of them arrived via Thailand.