Hoeryong concentration camp (Haengyong concentration camp or Camp 22) was a concentration and death camp in North Korea that was reported to have been closed in 2012.

In 2012, satellite image analysis and reports indicated major changes including its reported closure.

Location

Camp 22 was located in Hoeryong County, North Hamgyong province, in northeast North Korea, near the border with China. It was situated in a large valley with many side valleys, surrounded by high mountains. The southwest gate of the camp was located around northeast of downtown Hoeryong, while the main gate was located around southeast of Kaishantun in China's Jilin province. The western boundary of the camp runs parallel to, and at a distance of from, the Tumen River, which forms the border with China. The camp was not included in maps until recently and the North Korean government has always denied its existence.

History

The camp was founded around 1965 by Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il in Haengyong-ri and expanded into the areas of Chungbong-ri and Sawul-ri in the 1980s and 1990s. It was surrounded by an inner 3300 volt electric fence and an outer barbed wire fence, with traps and hidden nails between the two fences. The guards were equipped with automatic rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, clubs, whips, and trained dogs.

In the 1990s, there were an estimated 50,000 prisoners in the camp. Prisoners were mostly people who criticized the government, or purged senior party members.

  • Chungbong-ri was a mining section with a coal mine, loading depot, railway station, hospital, guards' quarters, and single prisoners' quarters.
  • Naksaeng-ri, Sawul-ri, Kulsan-ri, and Namsok-ri were farming sections with prisoner family quarters.

There was an execution site in Sugol Valley, at the edge of the camp.

Conditions in the camp

Former guard Ahn Myong-chol describes the conditions in the camp as harsh and life-threatening. He recalls the shock he felt upon his first arrival at the camp, where he likened the prisoners to walking skeletons, dwarfs, and cripples in rags. Ahn estimates that about 30% of the prisoners had deformities, such as torn off ears, smashed eyes, crooked noses, and faces covered with cuts and scars resulting from beatings and other mistreatment. Around 2,000 prisoners, he says, had missing limbs, but even prisoners who needed crutches to walk were still forced to work.

Prisoners received of corn per meal (two times a day), with almost no vegetables and no meat. Ahn estimated that 1,500–2,000 people died of malnutrition there every year, mostly children.

Children received only very basic education.

Single prisoners lived in bunkhouses with 100 people in one room. As a reward for good work, families were often allowed to live together in a single room inside a small house, without running water. All prisoners were allowed access only to dirty and crowded communal toilets.

Prisoners had to do hard physical labor in agriculture, mining, and inside factories from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. in winter), Kwon Hyuk, a former security officer in Camp 22, reported that corpses were loaded into cargo coaches together with the coal, to be burnt in a melting furnace. while the food was delivered to the State Security Agency or sold in Pyongyang and other parts of the country. Kwon reported that as a security officer he could decide whether or not to kill a prisoner if they violated a rule. because one member of a family tried to escape.

In the 1980s, public executions took place approximately once a week according to Kwon. Kwon was required to visit the secret execution site

In case of serious violations of camp rules, the prisoners are subjected to a process of investigation, which produced human rights violations such as reduced meals, torture, beating, and sexual harassment. and even more leave the detention building crippled.

Ahn and Kwon reported about the following torture methods used in Haengyong-ri: if, for example, they do not bow quickly or deeply enough before the guards, if they do not work hard enough, or do not obey quickly enough. Rape and sexual violence are very common in the camp,

Ahn reported about hundreds of prisoners each year being taken away for several "major construction projects", such as secret tunnels, military bases, or nuclear facilities in remote areas. where he witnessed a family with two children Ahn explained how inexperienced medical officers of Chungbong-ri hospital practiced their surgery techniques on prisoners. He heard numerous accounts of unnecessary operations and medical flaws, killing or permanently crippling prisoners.

Reports on mass starvation and closure

Satellite images from late 2012 showed the detention centre and some of the guard towers being razed, but all other structures appeared operational. and then miners from Kungsim mine According to another report the authorities decided to close the camp to cover its tracks after a warden defected.