The World - News from March 27, 1988

Two former North Korean soldiers arrived in Seoul after a five-month journey across China and to the Philippines. Kim Chang Hwa and Eo Sung Il, both 31, said at Seoul airport that they defected and swam across the Tumen River into China last Oct. 14, then headed south “to come near freedom.” They walked, hitchhiked, climbed hills and crossed streams, sometimes begging food or going hungry, they said. On March 19, they stowed away on a cargo vessel at Zhanjiang in southern China and were turned over by the crew to authorities in the Philippines, where they asked to go to South Korea.