State television footage showed how on Oct 18, Mr Zhu scaled a shed at the prison in Jilin city, northeast China, climbing on to its roof to jump over the prison’s outer fence in his bid for freedom. It also showed prison guards trying to give chase.

When his prison sentence ends in 2023, Mr Zhu was due to be deported back to North Korea – a practice condemned by human rights organisations – prompting speculation that he was trying to avoid returning and facing further incarceration and potentially torture or even execution. 

The perilous path through China to South Korea is the most common route taken by would-be defectors, putting them at the mercy of cutthroat human traffickers and Chinese criminal gangs, who exploit their fear of being arrested and deported.

At least 1,100 North Koreans are detained in China, Human Rights Watch said in a report in July. 

North Korean women and girls are at particular risk from sexual exploitation in brothels or being forced into abusive marriages with local men.

In 2019, a report by the London-based Korea Future Initiative, interviewing multiple female trafficking survivors, revealed how vulnerable women and girls as young as 12 were being tricked into escaping North Korea, only to be sold as sex slaves in China.