S. Korea starts work on new N. Korea refugee centre

South Korea broke ground Thursday for a second resettlement centre to help growing numbers of refugees from communist North Korea adjust to life in the capitalist South. When completed by the end of next year the new facility in Hwacheon county, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northeast of Seoul, will accommodate up to 500 refugees at a time, the unification ministry said. At the groundbreaking ceremony Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek said the number of refugees to reach the South since the 1950-53 war stood at 22,000 but would soon reach 30,000-40,000. "It is the duty of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to ensure that they will not lag behind in the South," Hyun said. The existing Hanawon resettlement centre, in Anseong 80 kilometres south of Seoul, can take up to 750 people at a time. The ministry has also rented a private facility where some 250 North Koreans are staying. But both are getting overcrowded as growing numbers flee hunger, poverty or repression in the North. Hanawon runs a mandatory three-month course which covers career guidance, information on the South and basic everyday skills such as buying a subway ticket, opening a bank account and using a credit card. The refugees are given financial and housing support upon leaving, but often hand much of their cash to professional brokers who helped them escape. Many also struggle to find decent jobs, partly because their ideological education in the North is irrelevant in the South. Some allege discrimination in the workplace. Seoul sees the refugees as "front-runners" to work for eventual reunification. Pyongyang says the conservative South Korean government has a "pipe dream" of absorbing it in a German-style reunification. President Lee Myung-Bak said last month that reunification might be near. "I'd like to say reunification is coming close. I cannot say more for fear of my being misunderstood but it wouldn't take so long (to come)," he was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.