Korean War POWs detained in North Korea

Tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers were captured by the North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War (1950–53) but were not returned during the prisoner exchanges under the 1953 . Most are presumed dead, but the South Korean government estimates some 560 South Korean prisoners of war still survive in North Korea. The issue of unaccounted South Korean POWs from the Korean War has been in dispute since the Armistice in 1953. North Korea continues to deny it holds these South Korean POWs. Interest in this issue has been renewed since 1994, when Lt. Cho Chang-ho, a former South Korean soldier presumed to have been killed in the war, escaped from North Korea. As of 2008, 79 former South Korean soldiers have escaped from North Korea.

There have also been reports that several hundred American POWs may not have been returned by North Korea. But the vast majority of unaccounted POWs are South Koreans.

The treatment of prisoners of war and their repatriation was a complicated issue in the Korean War. Nominally, both the Communists and United Nations forces were committed to the terms of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention, regarding the treatment of POWs. However, both sides applied exceptions and the negotiations regarding POWs were contentious and difficult.

Korean prisoners were assigned to one of three types of POW camps. Peace camps were for POWs sympathetic to communism, reform camps held highly skilled POWs who were indoctrinated in communist ideologies, and the third type was the normal POW camps. Prisoners in the first two camp types were prized and not usually exchanged nor released.

The North Koreans viewed South Korean forces not as enemy soldiers protected by the Geneva Conventions, but as fellow Koreans who had been led astray into "war crimes against their people" by imperialist forces. According to such reasoning, it was justified to "re-educate" these South Koreans and allow the ones who were fit to volunteer for the North Korean military. This was common practice and many South Korean POWs had been enlisted in the North Korean military. Although North Korea asserts that all such former South Korean soldiers had volunteered freely, others (including former South Korean POWs who have escaped in recent years) allege there was coercion.

The UN forces found that many of the prisoners it captured were former South Korean citizens who had been enlisted into the Korean People's Army (in many cases, allegedly against their will). Many of the Chinese soldiers who were captured were former Nationalists who had been enlisted into the Chinese People's Liberation Army after the defeat of the Nationalist armies in China in 1949. Large numbers of such prisoners did not want to be returned to North Korea or Communist China. Because of such prisoners, the UN Command was reluctant to abide by a literal interpretation of Article 118 of the Geneva Convention which states that all POWs were to be "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities." The UN wanted a voluntary repatriation where POWs could choose which side to return to. The Communists insisted on a full all-for-all exchange according to a literal interpretation of Article 118.

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