Anchor: The government has released details from its most recent report on human rights in North Korea. Based on first-hand accounts from  North Korean defectors, killings by authorities and public executions are still rampant throughout the regime, claiming the lives of victims in widely disparate situations.
Tom McCarthy has more. 
 
Report: The South Korean government's latest report on the state of human rights in North Korea has found that killings by state authorities and public executions remain prevalent.
 
According to the unification ministry's annual report based on testimonies from 508 North Korean defectors on Thursday, summary executions were carried out across the country against victims from a range of backgrounds and situations.

The report included an account of the killing of a laborer who was shot to death as he attempted to cross into China after being caught for theft during a smuggling operation near the North's border with China in 2019.
 
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, a person who entered a lockdown area was fatally shot without warning in accordance with rigid quarantine policies.
 
Inmates caught attempting to escape from the North's Hamhung concentration camp were reported to have been shot to death in 2016 and 2017, while detainees elsewhere were separately executed in secrecy for homosexuality and prostitution.
 
Other reasons for execution included drug use, religion, the distribution of South Korean video content and the selling of products from the South.
 
Women and children were no exception as the report indicated that a pregnant woman was publicly executed following the circulation of video footage showing her pointing a finger toward a portrait of the late regime founder Kim Il-sung while dancing inside her home in 2017.
 
Elsewhere within the regime, six teenagers were put to death for watching South Korean media and using illicit drugs.
 
The full report will officially be released on Friday in a first of its kind for the unification ministry, which spearheads the government's policy of engagement with the North.
Tom McCarthy, KBS WORLD Radio News.