Open Doors in North Korea

North Korea has enough prisoners in concentration camps to easily fill Wembley, Twickenham and Old Trafford. These prisoners have been stripped of their humanity and are forced to live in gruesome conditions.

Hea Woo* was one of those people. She spent many years in a small labour camp in the north of the country where she was tortured, starved and forced to work 12-hour days.

Growing up, Hea Woo heard lots of stories about Christian missionaries. They infiltrated North Korea and enticed vulnerable citizens, hospital patients and children down into cellars. They locked them away and harvested their organs and blood to sell. Christians, Hea Woo believed, were the enemy working in collaboration with America. They would not hesitate to catch her and kill her.

What Hea Woo didn’t realise was that her mother was a Christian. “She was always mumbling – barely audible,” Hea Woo said. “I realise now that she was praying.” Like most Christian parents in North Korea, Hea Woo’s mother ne...