A Seoul-based daily, Dong-A Ilbo, claims the government is secretly looking into the possibility of building a village in Mongolia for North Korean escapees.

According to the paper, government officials previously made a secret visit to Mongolia to discuss the matter with local officials. The report was unclear as to whether such a village would be intended for temporary or permanent housing purposes.

The report also said the state-run National Human Rights Commission of Korea has dispatched officials to China's northeastern regions for on-site inspections and to learn more of the situation of North Korean escapees in the region.

The dispatch of inspectors by the government comes at a tempestuous juncture in the escapee issue, with Washington enacting the North Korean Human Rights Act into law and China recently vowing to implement hard-line policies to deal with the asylum-seekers.