For prisoners treated as bargaining chips, releases can move at alarming speeds.
(Reuters) – Freedom can come with remarkable swiftness for US citizens held prisoner by North Korea, an experience that may await three Americans currently detained by the reclusive nation.
After months and even years of hardship, former detainees often say they found themselves boarding a US plane and flown out of the country less than an hour after being told by their captors that they were going home.
Ahead of a diplomatic thaw and planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, there were reports the detainees were relocated from a labor camp to a hotel near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, raising speculation they could be released.
“They didn’t tell me anything about my release until the last minute. I was in the hospital and taken to a hotel,” the longest-held American in North Korea, Kenneth Bae, said in an interview from South Korea.
Once informed of his release in 2014, an American delegation came in and within 30 minutes he was aboard an airplane to take him out of North Korea. From there it was a 24-hour journey via Guam and Hawaii home to Seattle, where his family was waiting.
While a prisoner, Bae was forced to shovel coal and haul rocks. He had about 30 guards watching him as their sole prisoner during his two years in captivity, which included hospital stays for the beating his body took from the hard labor.
Since the end of the Korean War, North Korea has taken 17 Americans captive, many of whom were in the country for humanitarian reasons inspired by their Christian faith. Bae and the three Americans currently being held – Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul – fall into that category.
In North Korea, where the Kim family that has ruled the country for more than 70 years is revered as demigods, proselytising is seen as an assault on the state, punishable by years of hard labor.
