The Daily NK on Camp 18

As North Korean concentration camps go, Camp 18 has a reputation for being less terrible than most. The Daily NK helps to keep that in perspective by publishing an interview with a survivor. He says prisoners there were branded on their stomachs to better identify them.

He also testified that at the political prison, “15~20 are publicly executed around this time of the year.

Lim also noted, regarding life at the camp, “The teachers try to instill animosity towards parents by saying, “˜You are paying for the crime of your parents.’ As a result, one woman buried her elderly parents alive.

Lim also explained that prisoners do not have citizen registration cards, so there isn’t even a process for reporting their deaths.

[….]

Ahn, who was originally a guard of the No. 22 Political Prison Camp, which consists of only a “completely controlled zone,” said at the ceremony, “Among 300,000-some detainees in political prison camps, 90% are held in completely controlled zones. The No. 22 Political Prison Camp and No. 25 Soosung Reeducation Camp in Chongjin even have the crisis plan of concealing their existence by constructing dams and then destroying them, burying the prisoners alive. [Daily NK]

You can see the boundaries of Camp 18 delineated on the maps here. According to the Daily NK’s account, Camp 18 may hold 100,000 prisoners. From Google Earth, it’s evident that the camp is very large and could certainly contain a large population.