The number of North Korean escapees has rebounded as more North Korean elites have defected from the communist country, including 13 employees of a Pyongyang-owned restaurant in China.
 
The Unification Ministry said that 342 North Koreans entered South Korea in the first quarter of this year, up 17-point-five percent from the same period last year.
 
Following the launch of the Kim Jong-un regime, the number of North Korean escapees dropped from two-thousand-700 in 2011 to one-thousand-276 in 2015.
 
The ministry said that the jump in the number of defectors might be temporary, adding it’s too early to make a judgment based on the first quarter data.

The government data comes after the latest confirmed defections by 13 North Koreans who used to work at an overseas restaurant in China.