UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, August 22,1995
7A
Dormitory set ablaze in hopes of escape; 37 women dead
The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — Young women desperate to escape from a church-run reform school apparently set fires in their rooms yesterday; hoping to flee when guards unlocked the dormitory doors.
The early morning fires swept out of control, however, and 37 women died before the doors were opened to let firemen in.
Many of the dead were packed into restrooms, and news reports said bloodstains and fingernail scratches
on barred windows showed their frantic efforts to escape.
The victims — all but three in their teens — either burned or suffocated. One was only 13. Sixteen others were injured.
Lee Yun-kun, the chief police investigator, said the fires were planned by a group wanting to escape the center.
The school had a history of escape attempts and was known for strict discipline of the women, most of them runaways caught working in brothels and bars. It was run by the Korean Freshberyian Church in Yongin, 35 miles south of Seoul.
Police asked security guards why it so took long to unlock doors after
Media reports said fires had been set in two other breakout attempts in the past year. Women had complained of poor facilities and harsh treatment for behavior such as smoking and chewing gum.
firefighters complained they could not get in before residents suffocated.
Contact with the outside world was limited, with phone calls banned, letters inspected and visits with relatives monitored.
Bullying also was common, and women caught trying to escape were beaten, had their hair cut and were subjected to forced labor, the domestic news agency Yonhan said.
Yonah accused the provincial government of ignoring 1992 reports on widespread beatings and other abuse at the center. Journalists who visited were handed notes from residents describing their lives as hell.
Police said 18 of the center's 138 women apparently were involved in
the escape plan, and arrest warrants were issued for five suspected masterminds. None of the 18 died.
The school's headmaster, Lee Kyong-rae, 64, was summoned for questioning. A television station also reported that school officials were under investigation for alleged embezzlement.
Yun-kun said it appeared the 18 women piled blankets in eight rooms and set them on fire at the same time to create confusion. Twelve of the two-story dormitory's 24 rooms were destroyed.
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