North Koreas’ Largest Concentration Camps on Google Earth
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that North Korea holds approximately 200,000 people in its system of concentration and detention camps, and that 400,000 people have died in these camps from torture, starvation, disease, and execution. These reports, in the context of estimates that North Korea has allowed between 600,000 and 2,500,000 of its people to starve to death while its government squandered the nation’s resources on weapons and luxuries for its ruling elite, suggest that North Korea’s oppression and politically targeted starvation of its people collectively constitute the world’s greatest ongoing atrocity, and almost certainly the most catastrophic anywhere on earth since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979.
The National Security Agency (bowibu) runs most of the camp system. Others are operated by the inmin pohan seong, a/k/a anjeon bu, or Peoples’ Security Agency. Excluding local Anjeonbu and Bowibu offices, most of North Korea’s concentration and labor camps fit into one of the following classifications:
1. The vast kwan-li-so political prison camps.
2. Labor reeducation camps, or kyo-hwa-so.
3. Regional collection and labor-training camps.
This list is certainly not exclusive. Witnesses have described a number of other kyo-hwa-so and regional prisons and camps that I have not yet located. I update this page periodically as I locate additional sites and witnesses confirm that they are what I believe them to be.