A court in North Korea has sentenced a two-year-old boy to life imprisonment in a prison camp after his Christian parents were found with a Bible in their home, the US State Department said in a report.

In what it describes as a shocking tale of inhumanity and religious intolerance, the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report claimed the two-year-old and his entire family were locked up for their religious beliefs.

“Several other cases of North Koreans being killed for being Christian were also included in the report, including the firing squad execution of a woman and her grandchild in 2011,” the report stated.

“Other believers faced pigeon torture, where they were suspended with their hands tied behind their backs, unable to sit or stand for days on end.

“Some were tortured with sleep deprivation including one woman in solitary confinement who was driven to suicide in 2020 after prison guards refused to let her sleep.

“As many as 70,000 Christians have been imprisoned for their faith under the Kim Jong-un regime out of a possible population of 400,000,” the report said, quoting a human rights publication which said several North Korean Christians hid their faith from their children.

“Children are encouraged to tell their teachers about any sign of faith in their parents’ home,” the publication from an NGO, Open Doors USA (ODUSA), said.

Another NGO, Korea Future, said children were taught in school about the “evil deeds” of Christian missionaries, including rape, blood sucking, organ harvesting, murder, and espionage”.

“One defector told Korea Future the government published graphic novels in which Christians coaxed children into churches and took them to the basement to draw their blood.”

Ripples Nigeria