North Korean children ripped by dogs, buried alive at prison camp

By Cho Hyun-eui

A former North Korean prison guard said that a group of children were ripped to pieces by guard dogs then buried alive, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

Ahn Myong-chol, who fled the country in 1994 after working at a prison camp for eight years, recalled the day he saw three dogs attack five chlidren coming back from the camp school.

Ahn said, "Three dogs killed three of the children right away. The two other children were barely breathing and the guards buried them alive." Later, the three dogs were fed special food as an award.

The former guard said prisoners are not treated as human beings. He said he was brainwashed to see all prisoners as evil and was encouraged to practice his taekwondo skills on prisoners.

Ahn said, "We were allowed to kill any prisoner who might try to escape, and if we brought back their body, they would award us by letting us go study at colleges. Some guards would send prisoners outside the camp and kill them as escapees to gain access to a college education."

After Ahn was promoted as a driver, he realized that more than 90 percent of prisoners didn't know why they were jailed. Ahn also had stumbled across North Korea's system of throwing generations of families into prison camps.

His father committed suicide after making some negative remarks about the country's leadership in 1994. Ahn feared he would be sent to prison camp so he fled the country right away.

Ahn now dedicates himself to his non-governmental organization to denounce the brutal prison camp system.

There are an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners in North Korea.