N Korean fugitives out of jail in Thailand

BANGKOK, Sep 22 (Reuters) A group of 159 North Korean refugees jailed in Thailand for illegal entry have been released after serving a 30-day sentence and will be allowed to leave the country soon, the United Nations today said.

''They've been moved out of jail and are being processed. We hope that as soon as possible they will be able to leave for a third country,'' UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Kitty McKenzie said.

She did not provide details, although there is little doubt the third country is South Korea, which almost always grants citizenship to asylum seekers from the North and which has lent tacit support to fugitive groups in the past.

The group, 136 adults and 23 children, were arrested in a police raid on a Bangkok house in August after being smuggled out of North Korea and into Thailand via China and eastern Myanmar.

Sixteen others picked up in the same raid were under UNHCR protection and have already departed.

Several organisations run by Christians or human rights activists and former North Korean refugees are known to be at work helping people get to South Korea.

To avoid a crackdown in China, which has deported some fugitives, they are shifting operations to countries such as Thailand and Vietnam.

According to Seoul's Unification Ministry, 1,054 North Koreans made it to the South in the first seven months of 2006 -- an increase of nearly 60 percent over the same period in 2005.

REUTERS SY RN1213