The government says a total of 1,890 North Korean asylum-seekers entered South Korea this year.

The Unification Ministry said Thursday that the number includes 486 North Korean escapees who were airlifted to South Korea from Vietnam in August in the largest single defection to the South.

A ministry official said that even without taking into account the mass defection, the number of North Koreans who sought asylum in the South in 2004 still slightly increased over last year.

The official said that the rate of increase of defections from the North had slowed somewhat this year as the communist state's food shortage situation had shown signs of subsiding. However, the official was quick to add that more and more North Korean escapees residing in China are seeking to settle in the South.