Eleven more North Koreans arrived in South Korea via a third country and are being questioned on their identity and motives for defection, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Wednesday.
The NIS said the 11 defectors, eight laborers and three unemployed, fled their country between October 1997 and August this year because of economic hardships in the North.
The number of North Korean defectors who have come to the South this year has now reached 389.