Inside North Korea’s inescapable Camp 16 where 20,000 political prisoners are being worked to death as others are strangled or executed with hammers
The secret gulag is reserved for the regime's high-profile opponents, such as former government ministers and officials
SINCE the death of his tyrannical father in 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has by all measures proven himself worthy of the family name.
Like his dad, the 32-year-old has critics purged and vast command structures suspected of being disloyal either murdered or imprisoned.
But nothing strikes more fear in the hearts of those who cross him as “Camp 16” – the country’s most secretive political prison.
Located deep in the harsh mountainous terrain in the country’s north, government ministers and the country’s most dangerous dissidents are among its 20,000 population.
In contrast to the country’s “re-education camps”, those inside the Stalinist gulag face no prospect of release and will quite literally be worked until they drop dead.
Very little is known about the camp because not a single person is known to have survived an escape attempt.
What we do know is it is surrounded by a 75mile network of guard fences, foot patrols and off road vehicle tracks.
Interspersed along this track are 35 sentry towers filled with machine gun-welding guards who have been ordered to massacre anybody fleeing.
Any starving escapees who have managed to avoid these man-made obstacles are thought to have perished in the wilderness surrounding it.
At 216 square miles, it is three times the size of Washington D.C. and is off the country’s main power grid, the Committee for in Human Rights North Korea (HRNK) reported.
Inside, prisoners are divided into three “towns” according to their security risk and their security rating.
Satellite images show it is expanding in size under Kim’s bloody reign, a likely consequence of a growing jail population.
According to the recent HRNK report, there is a fish farm on site, as well as agriculture fields, logging operations, a power plant and mining activity.
It is these industries that the 20,000 inmates are forced to work in for up to 20 hours a day.
Afterwards, they must attend “ideology struggle sessions” where they are encouraged to state each others flaws and beat those who fail the group.
Located just outside the camp’s perimeter is Punggye-ri, the underground site of the country’s four nuclear tests.
It is rumoured slaves from nearby Camp 16 were used to build the structure under Kim Jong-il.
According to South Korean media, a former inmate of Camp 22 once claimed prisoners from Camp 16 were used on the project.
It was considered a “source of fear” among the inmates, and “once taken there, no-one came back alive”, he said.
Amnesty International told The Sun Online almost no information was available on the notorious Camp 16.
However, it was believed to operate in a similar manner to a handful of other political prisons in the country.
Director Kate Allen said: “Amnesty believes these camps have been in operation for approaching 60 years, yet only three people have ever been known to have escaped and a massive 40 per cent will die of malnutrition.
“Every former inmate Amnesty spoke to had witnessed at least one public execution.
“The North Korean authorities have also been known to use a horrific 4ft by 4ft ‘torture cell’, where inmates can neither stand nor lie down.
“The minimum time in there is a week, but Amnesty has heard accounts of people being locked in there for eight months solid.
“The purpose of prison camps is to oppress, degrade and violate the inmates for as long as they are alive. The prisoners are only human insofar as they can speak. In reality though, they are worse off than animals.”
Former Camp 16 prison guard
“A significant proportion of those sent to the camps don’t even know what crimes that are accused of. And thousands more are sent there under ‘guilt by association’ – often sons and daughters of political prisoners.
“These camps are a stain on civilised society.”
Harrowing tales have emerged from those who have escaped from similar prisons, such as Camp 15.
Starving inmates would catch and eat snakes or rats, or even pig feed, an inmate told Amnesty International, adding she once ate corn kernels she spotted in cow dung.
Those caught escaping are hung or shot in front of the other inmates, though in some instances they are beaten to death.
Reports have emerged of women being raped by guards before being “disappeared”, while others are beaten to death with hammer blows for minor infractions.
KIM JONG-UN'S FEARED CAMP 16
North Korea’s political prison camps – of which Camp 16 is just one – are known as “Kwanliso”.
These are similar to Stalin’s Soviet-era gulags, where dissidents and critics are forced to carry out dangerous and heavy labour.
People sent to these camps include: those who have criticised the leadership (mostly officials); officials or cadres who are perceived to have failed in the implementation of policies; those who contacted South Koreans in other countries; those who were believed to be part of anti-government groups, including those who have criticised the government for its policies on the food crisis; those caught listening to South Korean broadcasts; un-repatriated prisoners of war from the Korean War in the 1950s; and North Koreans caught trying to flee the country.
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