SEOUL - A South Korean court ordered Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un to compensate two former prisoners of war who spent decades as forced labourers in the North, in a move that could set a far-reaching legal precedent on the divided peninsula.
Instead, they say they were forced to work at coal mines and other facilities for decades until they escaped the North via China.They filed the suit in 2016, saying they had suffered"enormous mental and physical damage" in the North. By the end of the war, there were 170,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners in the US-led UN forces' POW camps, while 100,000 South Korean and UN troops were held in the North, according to data by the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul.
Civic groups say some 80 South Korean POWs escaped the North and returned to the South in 2000 and 2001.