Twenty-nine North Koreans are seeking asylum after entering a South Korean school in the Chinese capital today.
The group included a family that had left the reclusive communist state less than a month ago as well as a mother and son who had lived in China for seven years, a news report said.
They were the latest in a stream of asylum seekers from North Korea stealing into foreign diplomatic compounds and schools in China in recent years.
With no Chinese security personnel guarding the back gate of the school, the group entered unchecked. Beijing police tried to prevent television cameramen from filming the school, where classes were not interrupted.
Curious schoolchildren stuck their heads out windows for a glimpse of the police outside. South Korea diplomats were on their way to the school, a school official said.
Hundreds of asylum seekers from reclusive North Korea have broken into foreign embassies and consulates in China since 2002, hoping to secure passage to wealthier South Korea, usually in smaller groups.
Last month, 44 North Korean asylum seekers used makeshift ladders to scale the fence and leap into the Canadian embassy in Beijing. A group of 20 entered the South Korean consulate this month.
About 170 asylum seekers are currently seeking asylum in embassies in China, including between 100 and 120 in the South Korean consulate, 44 in the Canadian embassy and about 20 in the Japanese embassy.
Despite an agreement with Pyongyang to repatriate North Koreans who enter China illegally, Beijing has allowed many of those who entered foreign diplomatic missions to travel to South Korea via a third country.