Only 12 North Korean defectors entered South Korea in the second quarter of the year, Seoul’s unification ministry said Wednesday, the lowest number recorded since quarter-on-quarter data began to be released in 2003.

The tentative figures — which track the number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea between April and June — represent a a 96.25% drop compared to the same period the previous year.

“The biggest reason for the sharp drop to 12, as of now, appears to be because since the outbreak of COVID-19 relevant countries closed borders, making it difficult for people to move around,” Ministry of Unification (MOU) spokesperson Yoh Sang-key told reporters at a regular briefing.

The official number of North Korean defectors in the second quarter of 2020 — as well as details such as their gender and age — will be out in mid-July, an official from the ministry told NK News.

This year may see only around 350 North Korean escapees coming into the South, according to a report submitted by the unification ministry to the South Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee for budget revision earlier this year.

The MOU had said it will cut around 10 billion Korean won ($8.3 million) from its North Korean defector resettlement fund in light of this sharp decline.

The unification ministry on Wednesday reaffirmed this decision, saying Seoul was working to cut parts of budget unlikely to be fully used in an effort to divert funds towards COVID-19 prevention and recovery.

The sharp drop is almost certainly linked to COVID-19, Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an NGO that works with defectors.

“Q2 fully shows the impact of Corona making it almost impossible for North Korean refugees to travel through China and get to Southeast Asian countries, and to a lesser extent the impact of the NK-China border lockdown meaning that people aren’t escaping in the first place,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it is as we had expected.”

Wednesday’s update follows news earlier in the year that the number of defections had also dropped in the first quarter of 2020, from 229 last year to 134 in the same period in 2020.

Kim Young-hui, a North Korean-born researcher on the DPRK economy at the Korea Development Bank (KDB), agreed that COVID-19 likely explained the continued fall in defections.

“Coronavirus made countries shut the borders, and this is likely the top reason that makes escaping North Korea harder these days,” Kim told NK News.

“Also, the cost for defecting was already getting more expensive in recent years,” she continued. “To cross the Tumen River, you’ll need around 10,000,000 Korean won per person.”

“With the increased risk, the cost increases too.”

ZERO RE-DEFECTIONS SINCE 2018

Meanwhile, an Ministry of Unification (MOU) official told NK News on Wednesday that no North Korean escapees had re-defected back to the North since 2018.

A total of 28 North Korean escapees re-entered the North under Kim Jong Un’s rule, the official said.

But while the two-year period in which no defectors have returned to the North coincides with a period of relative détente between the two Koreas, one expert cautioned against reading too much into the figures.

“Some of it could, of course, be cases that the ROKG doesn’t have data on,” said LiNK’s Sokeel Park. “These are also small numbers so we need to be careful.”

North Korea until 2018 frequently urged North Koreans living in the “living hell” of the South to return home.

One of the most famous “redefectors” was Jon Hye Song, known as Lim Ji-hyun in South Korea, who became famous for her appearances on the  “Moranbong Club” TV show in the South before returning to the North in July 2017.

Edited by Oliver Hotham