Three North Korean refugee children whose plight was highlighted in The Sunday Times last week have reached safety in Seoul. They were flown to the South Korean capital after diplomats secured their release from prison in Vientiane, Laos.

The three were at grave risk after the North Korean embassy in Laos demanded they should be handed over and sent home. Well documented accounts attest to prisoners returned to North Korea being beaten to death or yoked together like animals, their hands or necks pierced with barbed wire, while pregnant women have testified to forced abortions and infanticide.

The trio, an orphaned brother and sister aged 12 and 13 and a sick girl of 16, thought they had found sanctuary in Laos after a 1,700-mile journey by train, bus and on foot from the North Korean border with China.

But they were caught and imprisoned for five months while Laotian police bargained with refugee aid workers about their fate, at one point allegedly setting a price of £500 a child.

Fearing for the children’s lives, the aid workers released letters and photographs smuggled out of their jail.

Choi Hyang, the 13-year-old girl, said she could hardly speak for fear. Her brother Choi Hyok pleaded: “If you don’t help, they’re going to kill us.”

Their travelling companion Choi Hyang-mi, 16, said they faced “certain death” if sent back to North Korea.

The children were taken under government protection on their arrival in Seoul last week and will spend the next two to three months at a resettlement centre. After that they are likely to be placed in institutions run by Christian charities.

Publicity over the children forced the South Korean government to intervene.

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