Left behind: North Korean coalmines fuelled by South’s POWs

Just 13 days before the armistice that ended the Korean War, Southern soldier Lee Sun-woo was captured. He then spent more than three decades toiling in a North Korean coal mine like thousands of his compatriots. Lee is one of an estimated 50,000 former South Korean prisoners of war who were never returned by Pyongyang after the 1950-53 conflict. Instead they were forced to work in coal mines — major earners for North Korea until sanctions…