A refugee's perilous odyssey from N. Korea

China also has been cracking down on the underground railroad – run mostly by Christians from South Korea. The groups operate under names like "Good Friends," and "Exodus 21."

"About 95 percent of the people over there helping are Christians," says one such worker. "We don't talk about it much. We act in cells. We don't want to compromise each other. Right now, we are being shut down."

Last week China released Chun Ki-won, a South Korean Christian missionary and central figure among "railroad workers," as they call themselves. Mr. Chun was picked up last December on the border of Mongolia, helping a family get to South Korea.

Chun's arrest was a symbolic "statement" by Beijing, say railroad workers. At the height of the North's famine in the late 1990s, local Chinese police gave a wink and a nod to those helping Koreans. Usually the workers bribed their way out of arrest. But today, according to Tim Peters, an aid worker in Seoul, under a Beijing-directed policy, some Chinese make up to 2,500 yuan ($400), to identify any of the missionaries who troll the border.

Escapees are scattered across Asia. Choi's father and sister were rearrested in China and sit in a North Korean jail. His mother is hiding in China.

The character of the escapees from the North is changing, according to refugee interviews and expert testimony. Those crossing are no longer simply looking for food. Flows have thickened to include teachers, doctors, and other members of middle and upper classes. The numbers have grown so high that, for the most part, the North does not take harsh actions on first time offenders sent back, considered "betrayers" of the state.

But for second- or third-time offenders returned to the North, penalties include beatings, torture, or prison camp – especially if they were seeking to live in the South, or say they were helped by Christians. One new interrogation strategy is to show a cross, and ask if the refugee has seen one, say those interviewed.

Many single women from the North go into China to be married off, or to work as prostitutes. But most runaways seek to work in local factories and farms. They cross regularly, send money back to the North, and in many places along the Chinese border, are stealthily part of the economic fabric.

Many escapees, have relatives in China. During the Japanese occupation, lasting from 1912 to 1945, Koreans were moved into China for labor, and hundreds of villages along the border are majority Korean. But for Choi, who had no relatives, the Korean villages in China, where everyone knows everyone else, are not safe for hiding.

His story is typical: When the Chois were released from the North Korean jail, they stayed with a farmer who told them of a border guard who, for 200 won, (20 cents), would look the other way. Choi and his sister walked out through a rail tunnel at night. Their plan was to find work in China and send money back so their parents could cross. During their first escape in 1999, the Chois found shelter by going from farm house to farm house looking for a Korean family. This time, however, nothing went right.

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