More N Korean refugees reach South

A North Korean child waves from a window on a bus after arriving from Incheon International Airport west of Seoul yesterday. More than 200 North Koreans arrived in South Korea on Wednesday in the second mass influx of defectors from the Stalinist state in two days. PHOTO: AFP

The new arrivals followed a similar number that reached South Korea on Tuesday, the biggest single batch ever among the thousands that have fled famine and repression in their isolated homeland since the late 1990s.

The chartered plane which arrived on Wednesday flew into Inchon International Airport, the main airport that serves the capital Seoul, government and airline officials said.

It operated under the same veil of secrecy in which the previous day's refugees were whisked through a military airport in Sungnam, south of Seoul. A Reuters photographer said the plane was parked at a remote section of the sprawling seaside airfield.

The South Korean government, which has been working behind the scenes to bring the refugees to Seoul, has been tight-lipped about the process and declined to confirm where the chartered Korean Air plane had come from, or who was on board.