N Korean refugees reach Philippines

The group said it was forced to flee in desperation

A group of 25 North Korean asylum seekers who sought refuge in the Spanish embassy in Beijing have arrived in the Philippines, en route to South Korea.

The group arrived in Manila on a China Southern commercial flight late on Friday, Manila airport authorities said. Journalists were prevented from seeing or approaching the group.

The group pushed its way past the embassy guards

They had left Beijing shortly after Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji announced a deal had been struck that would allow them to leave the country.

The group - which includes 13 men and 12 women aged from about 14 to 52 - forced their way into the embassy on Thursday, threatening to commit suicide if China tried to send them back home.

Our correspondent in Beijing, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, says the Chinese Government has moved with remarkable speed to end this potentially embarrassing situation.

A Philippine foreign ministry official said the North Koreans would use Manila only as a transit point, and would not enter the Philippines in the legal sense.

'Risky strategy'

The Philippines has diplomatic relations with both Koreas and it has more than once allowed itself to be used as a staging post for North Korean defectors who wish to go to South Korea.

Defection rates

2001 - 583

2000 - 312

1999 - 148

Source: NIS

But China has an agreement with Pyongyang to return fleeing North Koreans, and many have previously been sent home.

However, seven members of a North Korean family were allowed to leave for South Korea - via a third country - last year after they had sought refuge in a United Nations office in Beijing.

Our correspondent says the danger for Beijing is that acting in this way will encourage more North Koreans to try to do the same.

There are believed to be up to 300,000 North Korean refugees living inside northeast China. Some activists say they are preparing fresh attempts to get more refugees into other foreign embassies in Beijing.

The North Koreans involved in this latest incident pushed past helpless guards outside the Spanish embassy gates on Thursday morning.

A brief statement released on behalf of the group said they had been forced to flee North Korea in desperation. Many of those in the group had fled to China before, but were forcibly repatriated.

They said they suffered imprisonment and torture in North Korea.

The statement passed to reporters said they were ordinary farmers and workers.