Description
Camp 22 is around 225 km2 (87 sq mi) in area. It is surrounded by an inner 3300 volt electric fence and an outer barbed wire fence, with traps and hidden nails between the two fences. The camp is controlled by roughly 1,000 guards and 500-600 administrative agents. The guards are equipped with automatic rifles, hand grenades and trained dogs.
In the 1990s there were an estimated 50,000 prisoners in the camp. Prisoners are mostly people who criticized the government, people deemed politically unreliable (such as South Korean prisoners of war, Christians, returnees from Japan) or purged senior party members. Based on the guilt by association principle (Korean: 연좌제, yeonjwaje) they are often imprisoned together with the whole family including children and the elderly. All prisoners are detained until they die and prisoners are never released.
The camp is divided into several prison labor colonies:
- Haengyong-ri is the camp headquarters with administration offices, a food factory, a garment factory, detention center, guards quarters and prisoner family quarters.
- Chungbong-ri is a mining section with a coal mine, loading depot, railway station, guards quarters and single prisoners quarters.
- Naksaeng-ri, Sawul-ri, Kulsan-ri and Namsok-ri are farming sections with prisoner family quarters.
There is a secret execution site in Sugol Valley, at the edge of the camp.
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