For more than a decade the family’s patriarch planned an escape by sea, convinced there was a wider world beyond North Korea and that the ocean was their only route out. On May 6, 2023, nine members of the Kim family set off from the North Korean coast and crossed the Yellow Sea.
Those who left included brothers Kim Il-hyeok and Kim Yi-hyeok; their mother; Il-hyeok’s wife, who was five months pregnant; Yi-hyeok’s wife and their two children, ages four and six; and a mother-in-law and brother-in-law. The younger brother had moved to the coast years earlier to learn maritime skills, repair boats and observe patrol patterns near the Northern Limit Line in search of gaps in government surveillance.
Il-hyeok told CNN the family had been relatively well off compared with many North Koreans. Their father had traded antiques and gold and sold coal transported by train, and the family had even acquired a second television smuggled through China, exposing them to South Korean media. The father died before the escape but left money to his children; Il-hyeok added to the savings by selling household appliances.
In May, storms reduced visibility at sea and created a window to attempt the crossing. Il-hyeok persuaded his hesitant, pregnant wife to go, saying it was for their child. Because women rarely went to sea in North Korea, the women in the group crossed a minefield to reach the boat without drawing attention. Living near the coast, the family used connections to bribe guards and assembled at an undisclosed shore. The two young children were hidden in burlap sacks during embarkation, and the family carried their father’s ashes with them.
They muffled the boat’s engine to reduce noise and left slowly. After roughly two hours of silent sailing they entered South Korean waters. Near Yeonpyeong Island, Il-hyeok switched on a searchlight and a navy vessel approached, asking whether their engine had failed. The family identified themselves as North Korean fishermen seeking to defect to South Korea.
Four months after arriving, Il-hyeok’s daughter Yeri was born. About a year later, Yi-hyeok died in a scuba-diving accident two months after Yeri’s first birthday. The remaining family members have continued rebuilding their lives: Il-hyeok is training as a chef and learning to operate a forklift, and he welcomed a second daughter this year. “I consider myself one of the lucky ones,” he said.