North Korean soldier takes revenge on her tormentor

Having grown accustomed to continuous nighttime calls and unwelcome touches for two years, the soldier decided to kill her superior officer - and then kill herself

One summer night in August of 2021, Ok Ju (an alias) — a female soldier attached to a military hospital in the North Korean military's Fourth Corps — trudged into the headquarters of the division command, her medical bag strapped to her shoulder. Her heart was palpitating even before she reached the entrance of the headquarters.

The 21-year-old nurse's job was to treat cadres and she had just received a call from the director of the unit's political department, who complained of insomnia and would ask for her every two days. It was extremely difficult to put up with the 50-something-year-old head of the political department, who would grope her as she administered the injections, but she endured the indignity nonetheless.

But that night, Ok Ju planned to change everything. Having grown inured to the political department director's continuous nighttime calls and unwelcome touches for two years since she was 19, she planned to kill him that night, and then kill herself.

Hailing from South Pyongan Province, Ok Ju lost her father when she was young. Living with her grandmother, she graduated from nursing school and entered the army late as a "laborer youth." Even if one is a qualified nurse, the competition is 50 to one to be assigned as a nurse at a divisional military hospital. However, Ok Ju suddenly received orders assigning her as a nurse to a military hospital.

She would find out later, but the head of the political department — who had come to her basic training camp as a guidance officer — ordered her assignment as his nurse after seeing her and her 170-centimeter willowy body and fair complexion.

From that time on, Ok Ju lived in hell. For two years, the political department director called her to his office at any time, making her a target of his sexual desire.

Ok Ju takes revenge on her tormentor

Ruminating over this nightmarish past, Ok Ju knocked on the door of the political department head's office and entered. Like always, she first gave him a cup of hot omija tea. The political department head drank half a cup and lied down on the office sofa. A few minutes after receiving an injection, he closed his eyes as if sleeping.

In the meantime, Ok Ju secretly emptied an ampule of pink rat poison into the omija tea and handed it to the political department director, who — suspecting nothing — drank the remaining tea.

Ok Ju hurriedly ran out of the office and made her way to a mountainside near the headquarters. She sat under a giant tree, mixed four ampules of rat poison in water and drank it. Her dead body was discovered the next day.

The political department director was discovered by a staff duty officer on the night of the incident. He had his stomach pumped and recovered consciousness 10 minutes later. When he later learned that Ok Ju — the person who tried to kill him — had died, he issued a special order and had all the nurses responsible for treating cadres at the divisional hospital reassigned to lower units.

Moreover, in documents pertaining to Ok Ju, she was written up as a "dangerous element" who supposedly tried to poison the political department head out of spite when he refused her request to become a party member.

Ok Ju's comrades did not have the heart to speak about what happened at the time, but after their discharge, they visited Ok Ju's lonely mother one-by-one, and told her the truth of what happened. Having lost her only daughter, she visited the General Political Bureau and corps political department every day to express her burning anger. Ok Ju was gone, but she did not want any more women soldiers like her daughter to suffer the same indignity. However, the cries of Ok Ju's mother were met with silence.

Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.

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