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North Korean soldiers carry a coffin through the Panmunjeom Joint Security Area in July 2001. Inside the coffin was a body which had floated to South Korea from North Korea along the Imjin River. (by Jang Cheol-gyu, staff photographer)
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Death is the one thing that is able to cross the lines of ideology
41 of the 195 deceased persons with no surviving relatives who passed through Incheon Medical Center between 2001 and 2007 had met an unnatural death. 21 of them were North Koreans. Their bodies had drifted south on the sea after death for unidentifiable reasons.
Based on a report received from the Ministry of Unification entitled ‘Handling of Corpses of North Korean Citizens from 1999 to February 2018,’ National Assembly member Kim Hyun-kwon of the Democratic Party of Korea traced the relationship between the sea, the deaths, the division of the two Koreas and politics. Records obtained separately by lawmakers that pertained to the handling of individual corpses added to the story of ‘unknown deaths in this divided land.’ This is the first time that statistics and details have been released about the people who, after death, were able to cross the DMZ over the last 20 years.
He died at sea before floating to the city
At 12:50 pm on July 3, 2015, an ROK Marine sentry reported that a dead body had been found floating in the ocean near Gyodong Bridge in Ganghwa County, Incheon.
Gyodong Island (Gyodong-myeon, Ganghwa Country) is a 47.14 square kilometer island located about 1.5 km to the northwest of Ganghwa Island. North Korea lies 2.5 km across the sea to its north. During the Korean War, residents from Hwanghae Province who had fled from Yeonbaek arrived on the island and awaited the day that they could return home. They could see with their own eyes the land that they could not go back to, even if they were to wait another 70 years.
On July 1, 2014, construction finished on a 2.11 km bridge that linked Ganghwa Island and Gyodong Island. When people missed their hometown or felt sad about being displaced, they crossed the bridge and climbed Mt. Hwagae to express their feelings of homesickness. The water between the islands grew thick and tough, and one year after the bridge had opened, the body of a man was found snagged at the bottom of the 13th pylon of the bridge.
At 1:30 pm on July 3, 2015, the body was retrieved by ROK Marines on a boat. The entire territory of Gyodong Island is a restricted area for civilians, which means people need to go through a checkpoint and obtain clearance to cross the Gyodong Bridge. The entire coastline of the island is covered with barbed wire, with guard posts and surveillance cameras everywhere.
The only open space is a sea passage outside the barbed wire between South and North Korea. Any objects moving outside the barbed wire are subject to surveillance and restrictions. “If anyone steps foot on the shore, the soldiers move out,” said one Marine officer. If a civilian wishes to access the sea or shore then they need to take a car across Gyodong Bridge (the wind is so strong that crossing on foot is forbidden for safety reasons). If a person is caught under the bridge, it must be a soldier, a person who crossed the DMZ or a dead body. The boat carrying the retrieved body arrived at Changhu-ri dock on Ganghwa Island at 1:50 pm.
Members of the Gangwha County government joint investigation team – including staff from the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Defense Security Command (DSC), and other military and intelligence agencies – gathered between 2 and 7 pm on July 3, 2015, to verify the man’s identity and investigate “communist suspicions.”
The man’s rotting corpse was dressed in an undershirt and mottled khaki military pants. Examination of his personal effects turned up seven North Korean bills totaling 13,500 won (US$12), North Korean-made Honeybee cigarettes, and a small Chinese-made radio. The team concluded that the body’s muscle condition was normal, with no marks indicating probable military training; the portable items appeared unconnected to any anti-South Korean infiltration attempt. The waters near where the body was discovered measured 9,588 meters from North Korea at their closest distance. The team concluded the man was a civilian who had floated down from the North.
North Korean bodies have often been found on Gyodong Island. On Aug. 3, 2011, a man’s body was found floating near an ROK Marine guard post. Police investigated the body and reported it to their station. The joint investigation team concluded that the body came from North Korea. North Koreans have also washed up dead on the tidal flats (in 1996) or defected by swimming to the coast (in 2014 and 2017).
In April 1999, government guidelines for the handling of North Korean bodies were established by order of the Prime Minister. (In the absence of guidelines, the Republic of Korea and UN Command had respectively returned civilians and soldiers to the North before that.) In the twenty years after their enactment (from 1999 to Feb. 2018), a total of 93 bodies of apparent North Korean civilians were reported to the Ministry of Unification.
These bodies were recovered from the Imjin, Hantan, and Bukhan Rivers which flow through the DMZ, the West Sea (including the waters around Yeonpyeong, Baengnyeong, Daecheong, Socheong, and Deokjeok Islands in Ongjin County), the East Sea, and international waters south of Yeosu (the sinking of the Grand Fortune 1 in Apr. 2014). Fishermen have reported bodies discovered while fishing.
Ever since Korea was divided in two, the only routes to the South not blocked by barbed wire have been over bodies of water.
The waters of the Imjin River emerge between Changpung, Panmun, and Kaepung Counties in the North Korean city of Kaesong and the South Korean cities of Cheorwon, Yeoncheon, and Paju, rounding Gyodong Island before emptying into the West Sea. The river often spills over its banks when flooding occurs. During the “Arduous March” period in North Korea in the mid-1990s, flimsy homes built by piling stones and mashing down earth would be washed downstream when the river water overflowed.
Wooden boats capsized while fishing in the swollen river; people would be swept off of the banks and into the waters. Some people attempted to recover livestock or objects out of the water, only to end up caught in the currents themselves. In other cases, people are seen as likely to have drowned attempting to escape the North via the river.
(The above is based on the experiences and analysis of Ju Seung-hyeon, a Jeonju Kijeon College professor who worked in a North Korean unit in the Imjin River valley before defecting through the Demilitarized Zone in 2002.) Their bodies are believed to have floated down the Imjin River (19 bodies between 2004 and 2015) before splitting off either toward the Bukhan River (two bodies), washing up on Gyodong Island, or floating out into the West Sea (30 bodies).
At 7:30 pm on July 3, 2015, the body of a man recovered from a pier on Gyodong Bridge was taken to Incheon Medical Center. A physician examined the corpse. With the joint investigation team concluding the body was that of a North Korean, no autopsy was performed. Decomposition and decay were too severe for fingerprints to be taken; the cause of death could not be determined. At least a month appeared to have passed since death.
Bodies reported by the team as belonging to civilians are delivered to police or the Coast Guard (soldiers are delivered to the Ministry of National Defense) and taken to national or public hospitals. Accidental deaths represented 41 of the 195 decedents without friends or family seen at Incheon Medical Center between 2001 and 2017, or 21%. Twenty-one of them – representing half the accidental deaths and 10.7% of all deaths without surviving relatives – are suspected or confirmed to have been North Koreans.
In Aug. 2017, the body of a woman found on the coast northeast of Yeonpyeong Island arrived at the center. The corpse’s smell penetrated outside of the mortuary. Around 20 days later, word was received that an additional body had been recovered. It was sent to a different funeral home at the request of the center, which insisted it could not cope with the stench of two such bodies at the same time.
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A 2.11km bridge linking Ganghwa Island (right) with Gyodong Island (left). On July 3, 2015, ROK Marines recovered the body of a North Korean which had snagged on the 13th pylon of the bridge. (by Lee Moon-young, staff reporter)
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Rocked by the waves of politics
At 11 am on July 6, 2015, prosecutors began an investigation into criminal activity in connection with the death of the “Gyodong Bridge man.” No noticeable signs of trauma were discovered on his 165-centimeter frame. The deaths of people crossing over from the North by sea were ambiguous. In their swollen and damaged state, it was difficult to even tell how they had died.
Their names, ages, hometowns, and the circumstances of their passage to the South could not be verified. Only one thing was clear: they were dead. Prosecutors could not specify the cause or time of death. They ordered the North Korean bodies to be “processed” according to the joint investigation findings: per the Prime Minister’s directive, the bodies of North Korean civilians were to be sent back to the North.
The two bodies of men found four years apart on Gyodong Island met with very different fates.
One of them, recovered in Aug. 2011, was returned to North Korea after one week. The repatriation of civilian remains was overseen by the Ministry of Unification. North Korea was notified of the fact, and once a request for repatriation was made, the remains were delivered to the North.
In cases of remains belonging to soldiers, the Minister of National Defense carried out the repatriation through the UN Command (14 bodies between 2004 and 2015). The Minister of National Defense and National Intelligence Service director processed remains belonging to suspected armistice agreement violators or agents.
A hearse bearing the man’s remains traveled to Panmunjeom in accordance with cadaver-handling rules. It was met at Panmunjeom by Republic of Korea Red Cross members (per a 2007 North Korean civilian cadaver transportation working agreement by the Ministry of Unification and Red Cross). Six people on either side carried to coffin toward the Military Demarcation Line (MDL).
While South Korean decedents without surviving relatives are cremated, the bodies of North Koreans are buried in coffins. Burial outfits and funeral effects were also chosen from a slightly higher price range – around 1.02 million won (US$960) in this man’s case. South and North Korean Red Cross members stood in two rows on either side of the MDL. The South Koreans transferred the coffin from one person to the next; it was received by the North Koreans in turn. Once the six North Koreans were carrying the coffin, the repatriation was complete.
Since 1999, the Ministry of Unification has sent 84 bodies of civilians to North Korea. In four cases, North Korea refused the body or did not respond after notification (two before 2002, two in 2017). Of the 93 bodies reported to the ministry by the joint investigation team, a total of 88 were “recognized” by the ministry as belonging to North Koreans. Death was the one thing that was able to cross the lines of ideology. (North Korea has sent five bodies to South Korea to date.)
The other man – the one found at Gyodong Bridge’s thirteenth pier – did not make the trip back over the MDL. His casket was taken not to Panmunjeom, but to a crematorium.
The conclusion of the experts at the scene – the joint investigation team members and investigative agents – was overturned by the Ministry of Unification, which never examined the body itself. The ministry concluded that the investigation findings were insufficient to make the determination that the body belonged to a North Korea. No notification was sent to North Korea to share news of the death and ask if the body was to be repatriated.
After the ministry refused repatriation, investigators reexamined the possibility that the man might have been Chinese instead. A national search ensued for information on his identity, but no leads emerged. The Chinese embassy questioned the family members of Chinese fishing boat crew members who had gone missing in South Korea. None of those missing or found dead matched the man. The related agencies ultimately complied with the ministry’s insistence that the body could not be delivered to North Korea.
The deliveries of bodies that had taken place every year stopped completely between 2015 and 2017. Based on joint investigations over that three-year period, four bodies were reported to the Ministry of Unification as belonging to North Koreans. The male body found at Gyodong Bridge in 2015 and another found in 2016 in the waters near an egret habitat on Yeonpyeong Island were reclassified by the ministry as “indeterminable of being North Korean.” (“The Ministry of Unification has independent authority to make decisions irrespective of the investigation team’s conclusions,” explained the office of lawmaker Kim Hyun-kwon.)
North Korea was notified about two bodies discovered in 2017 – both found in August, after the Moon Jae-in administration took office – but did not proceed with transfer procedures. The time period coincided with a suspension of the liaison channel at Panmunjeom (from Feb. 11, 2016 – the day after the Park Geun-hye administration suspended activity at the Kaesong Industrial Complex – until Jan. 3, 2018) and the sharpest rise in inter-Korean tensions.
After the guidelines’ establishment, the Ministry of Unification rejected joint investigative team findings and refused to deliver remains in five cases. (According to the Ministry, the bodies in question were “dressed only in underwear without labels or lacked personal effects that would serve as a basis [for concluding North Korean identity], such as shoes or coins.”)
Each of these were bodies recovered between 2011 and 2016 (two in 2011, one in 2013, one in 2015, and one in 2016). Borne on the waves, the bodies had been able to cross one boundary in death. Though they had traveled South, the way back North was rocked by the waves of politics.
“The handling of the five North Korean civilian bodies that were not repatriated by the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations is a reflection of the tragedy of inter-Korean relations,” said Kim Hyun-kwon. “Peace between South and North must start with humanitarian exchange. We must not have any refusals of humanitarian repatriation of bodies on the grounds that inter-Korean relations have soured.”
From North Korean to “South Korean without surviving relatives”
On Aug. 25, 2015 – 54 days after his body’s discovery – the “Gyodong Bridge man” was assigned South Korean resident registration number 111111-1111111. With no route back to the North, the bodies of North Korean civilians were processed and cremated as South Korean decedents without surviving relatives. Since no personal information could be verified, a registration number consisting solely of ones was input as a temporary measure for administrative processing.
This number was modified one more time just before cremation: following the South Korean resident registration number format in which the first six digits represent the individual’s date of birth, he was sent to the crematorium with the date of his discovery as the first part of the number (**0703-1******). Since he was being treated as a domestic decedent without relations, his “death charge” – the amount to cover processing of his remains – was 750,000 won (US$707).
To date, nine bodies have been reported to the Ministry of Unification as belonging to North Korean civilians, only to end up incinerated as decedents without surviving relatives. (In five cases, the ministry determined “insufficient grounds” for concluding them to be North Koreans; North Korea refused the bodies in the other four instances.)
Only the sea knows the truth of their deaths. Having washed southward for unknown reasons from an unknown land – a land the very knowing of which was prohibited – they were quietly “processed” unbeknownst to the South Korean public. Reduced to ashes, the man’s remains were placed in a small wooden box and enshrined in an ossuary for the unknown dead (Geumma Tomb at Incheon Family Park).
Placed amid the “layers of death” with other densely stacked boxes measuring 20 cm to a side, the man became neighbors in death with South Koreans who had died without surviving relatives to their name. Six months after his enshrinement there, he was joined by the remains of another man cremated on Feb. 19, 2016 – 47 days after becoming recovered on Jan. 4, 2016, near an egret habitat on Yeonpyeong Island.
The second man was discovered in the water wearing North Korean-made “labor shoes” no South Korean could have acquired and wearing a Chinese-made wristwatch. The joint investigation team “immediately” concluded the body to belong to a North Korean, but the Ministry of Unification did not repatriate the remains, citing a “lack of evidence.”
Twenty months later on Oct. 24, 2017, the two men were joined across the ossuary wall by the woman whose remains had overpowered the Incheon Medical Center mortuary with their smell. (North Korea had refused their return.)
The more high-rise buildings have chipped away at the city’s glare, the deeper the places have become where our gaze does not reach. As the land persists in its division, and the administrative handling of that division becomes more complex, the stories of people reduced to ashes in this “city with a borderline” have only grown. Buried beneath the tombs of those stories lie the ones who were never able to make their return home.
By Lee Moon-young, staff reporter
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
