A couple attempting to flee North Korea with their teenage nephew to South Korea has been executed by North Korean authorities.
A source in North Korea who requested to stay anonymous shared, "They were arrested for attempting to escape [across] the border, which is now heavily controlled due to the national emergency quarantine against the coronavirus."
During the COVID-19 quarantine, the border is said to be even more heavily controlled.
"The attempt to escape at a time like this when border security is so tight due to emergency quarantine measures was an extremely dangerous and risky act," the source said.
"It was a couple in their 50s and a 14-year-old student. The boy is the son of the wife's younger brother, who had previously escaped to the South. They were caught by border guards as they were trying to escape together," a source who requested to stay anonymous shared.
The couple were tortured into confessing their attempt to escape and the husband and wife were given no trial and were immediately shot by a firing squad for treason. The teenage nephew was spared for being a minor.
"The supreme leadership has ordered that those who attempt to flee the country during the emergency period must be sternly punished. There's no way they could have avoided the firing squad because they attempted to defect to South Korea," a source shared.
North Korean citizens have been confirming that the story of the attempted escape has been spreading and although they feel relief that the minor's life was spared, they expressed anger at the authorities claiming that "--there's nothing wrong with trying to escape from North Korea, especially when it is so hard to make ends meet due to the coronavirus crisis."
North Korea officially claims that there are no confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country despite the evident clues that the citizens of North Korea are struggling to survive.
