For North Korean Defectors, Pandemic Severs Few Remaining Links to Home

SEOUL - When Hong Gang-chul, a North Korean border guard, decided to escape his homeland in 2013, he knew his relationship with his family would never be the same.

Hong, who had helped other North Koreans escape, left the country in a hurry, believing he was wanted by North Korean authorities. In doing so, he left two young daughters with their mother in North Korea. When he later began to arrange for them to defect, they refused. A stocky, soft-spoken 48-year-old, Hong now lives in a simple apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, where he looks after his elderly mother, who also fled the North.