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SEOUL: Four North Koreans have sought asylum in South Korea after escaping their hunger-stricken communist homeland, Seoul's main government intelligence agency said on Wednesday.

The National Intelligence Service identified the four as ordinary citizens who escaped North Korea in 1997 and 1998. One of them, Kim Sun Woo, 34, identified himself as a son of a South Korean POW during the Korean War, it said.

The four, the agency said, entered South Korea by way of a "third country," a term it usually uses to avoid naming China, which is required by treaty with North Korea to return defectors.

About 270 North Koreans have defected to South Korea in the past four years, including 70 in 1998. Many have complained about severe food and fuel shortages in the reclusive country.

The Koreas were divided into the communist North and the capitalist South in 1945. They are technically still at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.ÑAP�
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