Eight North Korean defectors stormed into a South Korean international school in Qingdao, China Tuesday morning, requesting safe passage to the South.

That's according to a Seoul-based activist group committed to helping North Korean escapees.

The group defection follows Beijing's deportation last month of seven North Korean refugees who sought asylum in late August at a South Korean school in Yentai, China.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan called Chinese Ambassador to Seoul, Ning Fukui, to his office Tuesday and strongly urged Beijing to refrain from forcibly repatriating the eight defectors back to their Stalinist homeland, and to instead help them be transferred to the South.