On a grey afternoon in Seoul, in the shadow of the mountains that surround the city, North Korean defectors stood behind a police cordon and struggled to raise their voices above the sound of late-afternoon traffic.
The defectors and their supporters have been gathering daily in front of the Chinese embassy in the South Korean capital in order to draw attention to a group of North Koreans currently being held in China.
While precise number of defectors being held in China is not known, there are believed to be between 30 and 40 of them. They are likely to be repatriated by the Chinese government and could face death or torture in their homeland. Reports last week said that a small group of them had already been deported.
"We can't storm the Chinese embassy and force them to do anything, so we're left to raise our voices in this way," said Lee Seung Joo, one of the defectors attending the demonstration.
"We need to come together and let people in South Korea and around the world know about the tragic situation in North Korea," he said.
While all defectors sent back from China are believed to face harsh punishment upon their return to North Korea, the group now in China is particularly at risk: the North Korean government has said that anyone caught defecting during the period of mourning for Kim Jong Il's death would have three generations of family members executed.
