A Seoul-based NGO has used publicly available satellite imagery and testimony from hundreds of defectors to identify at many as 40 potential mass graves in North Korea….
A Seoul-based NGO has used publicly available satellite imagery and testimony from hundreds of defectors to identify at many as 40 potential mass graves in North Korea.
In a 58-page report released on Wednesday, The Transnational Justice Working Group (TJWG) said it believes that more sites have yet to be identified and that it hopes its ongoing research will be used in the future in legal actions against North Korean officials accused of crimes against humanity.
Founded by human rights activists from five nations, the group began its research in 2014 and said its Mapping Project had the potential to contribute to the international database “to support the push for accountability, as well as for future efforts to institute a process of transnational justice following a change in the political conditions in North Korea”.
To date, 375 defectors from North Korea have been interviewed and asked about public executions they had witnessed, mass graves they had seen or other atrocities they had heard about perpetrated against other citizens.
I was forced to marry a North Korean nuclear scientist and …
The interviewees were invited to examine large-scale satellite images of the towns where they used to live and, once they had found their bearings by identifying key landmarks, such as train stations and offices of the ruling party, asked to point out locations where they had witnessed a public execution.
