Free Republic

‘Oh” is all that’s known for the name of the North Korean soldier whose escape to South Korea became a viral video. But we do have a bit more to the story. Shots hit the 24-year-old five times in the lungs and intestines as he ran to freedom in the heavily guarded border zone. He’s now recovering in intensive care. His stomach contained raw corn kernels — a clear sign of brutal food shortages, though North Korea’s border guards are usually the regime’s most trusted, and favored, troops. With “more than 20 years of experience as a surgeon,” said Lee...

An American student who had been imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months died from lack of oxygen and blood to the brain, an Ohio coroner said on Wednesday. Otto Warmbier’s death on June 19 was due to an unknown injury that occurred more than a year before his death, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco said at a news conference. In response to a question at the news conference, the coroner said there was no evidence of trauma to Warmbier’s teeth nor was there evidence of broken bones.

The parents of Otto Warmbier recalled the optimism they felt when they learned their son was being released from a prison in North Korea during their first interview, three months after their son’s death. Fred and Cindy Warmbier told Fox and Friends they knew their son was in a coma, but hoped medical care in the United States would be enough to save Otto. As soon as they boarded the plane that carried him back to the United States, however, they were met with “howling, this involuntary, inhuman sound.” --snip-- The Warmbiers explained that they’d hoped to stay out of...

Kim Jong Un’s officials plucked teenage girls from North Korean schools to serve as the leader’s sex slaves, indulged in a gluttonous lifestyle while his people starved and ordered public executions that turned into horrific shows of violence, a North Korean defector revealed. Hee Yeon, who fled Pyongyang in 2015 and now lives in Seoul, told The Mirror about the years she spent living in constant fear of Kim Jong Un since the ruthless dictator took control of North Korea in 2011. “Despite our privilege we were scared. I saw terrible things in Pyongyang,” Hee Yeon said. In what heinous...

A defector from North Korea has described the shocking brutality she witnessed from inside Kim Jong-un’s regime. Hee Yeon Lim described how the North Korean leader ordered executions of anyone who dared to cross him and alleged that he picks teenage girls to become his sex slaves. The daughter of an army colonel, Hee Yeon, 26, lived a privileged life in North Korean capital Pyongyang, where she was exposed to Jong-un’s reign of terror. Describing one occasion she saw 11 musicians brutally executed for making a pornographic video, she told The Mirror: “We were ordered to leave our classes by...