The mass defections of North Korean refugees are rare. It is even rarer when those defectors flee their country using their legally issued North Korean passports. Rarer still when it turns out that those defectors are the children of ranking officials in the Workers’ Party of Korea. Combine that with the fact that a high-ranking military officer from North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance also defected late last year and one has to wonder whether or not the North Korean regime may be finally starting to buckle under Kim Jong Un’s hefty heels.

(As of this writing, it has been reported that seven more North Koreans from two families who lived near the Chinese border defected on April 15th – Kim Il Sung’s supposed birthday, no less.)