S. Korea expands resettlement facility for N.K. defectors

By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has completed expanding its resettlement center for North Korean defectors, whose numbers have been visibly increasing, officials said Monday.

The expansion doubled the Hanawon resettlement center's housing capacity from 300
to 600, they said.
Since October last year, the Unification Ministry dealing with inter-Korean
affairs has spent 12.85 billion won (US$9.4 million) to add three more buildings
to the compound in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, and expand a playground
and a parking lot, officials said.
A ceremony celebrating the completion will be held on Thursday with Unification
Minister Kim Ha-joong attending.
More than 14,000 North Koreans have arrived in South Korea since the end of the
1950-53 Korean War after escaping from political oppression and chronic food
shortages in their communist homeland.
"The recent sharp increase of North Korean defectors entering South Korea has
prompted us to expand the resettlement facility," a ministry official said,
requesting anonymity. "This expansion will help create a pleasant educational
environment for defectors and stabilize them emotionally," the official added.
Inter-Korean relations have worsened since the conservative South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak took office in February. He has taken a harder stance
toward Pyongyang than his two liberal predecessors over the North's nuclear
program and human rights abuses.
Pyongyang has suspended almost all cross-border projects, including sightseeing
tours to the ancient North Korean city of Kaesong, and has imposed tight control
over its border with South Korea since early this month.