LOCATION Northeastern North Korea
NEAREST POPULATION HUB Hoeryong
SECRECY OVERVIEW Existence unacknowledged: a prison camp holding 50,000 people, mostly for criticizing the government.
A detention center for political prisoners and their families, Camp 22 lies in a mountainous setting close to North Korea’s borders with Russia and China. Though the secretive North Korean government denies its existence and it does not appear on any maps, several former inmates and members of staff have alleged extreme brutality and human rights violations.
Camp 22 is perhaps more reminiscent of a concentration camp than a typical prison facility. Believed to have been established in 1959, most of its 50,000 inmates have either been interned for criticizing the ruling regime or for simply being related to those who have. It is believed that up to three generations of certain families are held here, in accordance with a proclamation by Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founding tyrant: “Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.”
Evidence from satellite photos suggests that the camp covers approximately 48 by 40 kilometers (30 x 25 miles) near the village of Haengyong-ni, with prisoners dispersed widely across it, and that it is surrounded by fences under heavy guard. Reports from other North Korean camps indicate that electric fencing is probably employed. Much of our knowledge of what occurs within its confines comes from testimony delivered by defectors from North Korea, including the camp’s one-time chief of management.
They have described how prisoners are expected to labor for between 12 and 15 hours a day, surviving on a meager diet. Death from malnutrition and other diseases is common, as well as from work-related accidents and during interrogations.
Most prisoners are believed to arrive at the camp without due legal process and are forbidden contact with the outside world. Anyone caught attempting to escape is liable to be executed in front of fellow prisoners. Suicide, meanwhile, is punished by extended sentences for the dead prisoner’s family.
Guards mistreat prisoners with impunity, with allegations of rape and child-killing voiced by various sources. Perhaps most shockingly of all, former camp employees have claimed that some inmates were subjected to chemical experimentation, while others were killed en masse in gas chambers. Amid such allegations, it is little surprise that Pyongyang denies the camp even exists.