Four North Koreans scaled the wall of a US consulate in China to seek asylum in the United States, South Korean media reported on Saturday, the first such defections since Washington granted refugee status to North Koreans earlier this month.
Yonhap news agency, citing unnamed sources, said three men and one woman left South Korea's consulate in the north-eastern city of Shenyang, where they had been given refuge, to enter the nearby US mission.
Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying "some" North Koreans were going through a procedure to take refuge in the United States. But the South's foreign ministry declined to confirm the report, citing its policy of not commenting on individual cases of North Korean defectors.
Earlier this month, six North Koreans were the first to be granted asylum in the United States under a 2004 US law aimed at promoting human rights in the isolated North.
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