Hyeon Soo Lim spent two years and seven months in custody, sentenced to hard labour for allegedly attempting to overthrow the country’s regime
Days after being released from a North Korean prison, a Canadian pastor who spent more than two years in custody has spoken about his ordeal, detailing the hard labour he was forced to carry out and his ongoing battle against overwhelming loneliness.
“From the first day of my detainment until the day I was released, I ate 2,757 meals in isolation, ” Hyeon Soo Lim said in a prepared statement handed out before his first public appearance at a church near Toronto on Sunday. “It was difficult to see when and how the entire ordeal would end.”
Lim landed on Canadian soil on Saturday, days after North Korea said it had released the 62-year-old on “sick bail”. A former pastor at one of Canada’s largest churches, Lim attended a church service the following day, telling his congregation of the tasks he was forced to carry out after being sentenced to hard labour for allegedly attempting to overthrow the country’s regime.
During his two years and seven months in custody, winters were spent digging holes that measured one metre wide and one metre deep. “The ground was frozen. The mud was so hard that it took two days to dig one hole, ” he said. “My upper body was sweating; my fingers and toes were frostbitten.” Other times he was put to work breaking apart frozen coal at a storage facility.
Spring and summer were spent outside, toiling eight hours a day in the scorching sun.
