SEOUL, Nov. 8 (Yonhap) -- Seoul will open a second resettlement education center next month for North Koreans who have defected from the famine-stricken country to settle down in South Korea, the ministry handling North Korean issues said Thursday.

   The four-story building will open for operations on Dec. 5 in Gangwon Province's Hwacheon, 118 kilometers northeast of Seoul.

   The latest resettlement center has the capacity to accommodate 500 defectors and will cater to male refugees while they undertake their compulsory three-month education program, the Unification Ministry said.

   South Korea opened the first resettlement center in 1999 in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, which now provides resettlement programs for youth and female defectors, with a capacity of 600 people. In the past Seoul had run a make-shift center for male defectors.

   The number of North Korean defectors who had settled down in the South reached 24,309 as of the end of October.

   pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)