Narration: On a cold winter day on the tense boundary between North Korea and China… North Korean soldiers keep a constant, armed vigil.

Narration: It’s their job to stop fellow North Koreans who will risk their lives trying to escape their country by crossing the Tumen River.…

But come nightfall they are not the only ones watching.

Narration: Hiding in the darkness are three South Korean journalists …here to document the stories of the North Korean defectors.

Journalist #1 (subtitle): Oh, I can see two people. They’re crossing.

Journalist #2 (subtitle): Are they crossing?

Journalist #1 (subtitle): Yes, they’re crossing.

Journalist #2 (subtitle): Can you see them clearly?

Journalist #1 (subtitle): Yes, they’re crossing.

Journalist #2 (subtitle): Is the camera recording?

Journalist #1 (subtitle): Yes.

Narration: On this night, a smuggler escorts a defector into the icy river.

It’s a short, but dangerous crossing. If they are caught by patrols on either side they will be hauled back to North Korea. Captured defectors have been imprisoned, tortured, even executed.

Narration: But for those who dare to cross, what they hope waits beyond the opposite shore makes it worth the risk.

Narration: Near the end of their ten-month reporting mission, the Chosun Ilbo journalists thought they had seen it all.

But on one last trip to the border, there is one last defector.

Han Yong Ho: It was winter. The corpse was frozen.

Lee Hark Joon: She was frozen in the middle of the river. Her head was toward neither China nor North Korea. It was facing down. She had no place to go and had nothing to wear on such a cold day. I thought that was symbolic of the North Korean defectors. They have nowhere to go. She’s probably in the ocean now.

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