For more than 50 years, North Korea has been operating prison camps that are actually forced labor concentration camps. Government and political oppositionists are incarcerated and forced to do slave labor in these camps which hold an estimated 200,000 prisoners. Forced labor has been regarded as ‘an opportunity for redemption.’

North Korea’s government has been denying the existence of these prison camps but developments in satellite imaging technology that produce high-resolution satellite images reveal the truth in the mountains of North Korea.

These images serve to corroborate the stories of survivors and former prison guards. Some even show the entrances to mines where former prisoners say they worked as slaves. There are facilities where former guards said were used to torture to death those inmates that did not cooperate. There are places where prisoners were forced to witness executions. Watch towers and electrified fences comprise the perimeters of these camps.

Political prisoners in concentration camps work between 12 and 15 hours a day. Their clothes are rags and they cannot use soap when taking a bath. Many simply die from illnesses related to malnutrition, around the age of 50. So reveals a report by the Korean Bar Association which details the daily life of these political prisoners based on the testimonies of survivors of the camps and former guards.

The daily diet of prisoners in these camps is mainly comprised of corn and salt. Most inmates lose their teeth and have blackened gums. Their bones have grown very weak. Upon entering the concentration camps, the prisoners are given some clothes that would be all they will have throughout their stay, with no possibility for change. They have no socks, underwear, soap, towels, and sanitary napkins.

With lack of definite statistics, North Korea’s population is pegged at between 18 and 23 million people. This makes one out of every hundred North Korea inhabitants a prisoner in these concentration camps.

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Via The Washington Post/HRNK