North Koreans storm Spanish embassy

A Chinese police guard runs to secure the gate of the Spanish embassy

BEIJING, China -- A group of 25 North Korean refugees has stormed the Spanish embassy in Beijing seeking political asylum and threatening suicide if they are sent back.

The 25 -- from six families, including eight children -- are fleeing persecution from their hard-line communist country, according to a Spanish diplomat and a Tokyo-based refugee support organization.

The group ran through the embassy's front gate on Thursday morning, past two armed Chinese guards. One struggled briefly with a guard who grabbed him, but broke free and ran with the others into the main embassy building, the Associated Press reported.

VIDEO CNN's Jaime Florcruz reports the North Korean refugees in China who ran into the Spanish Embassy are trying to get to South Korea. (March 14) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)    CNN.com Asia More news from our Asia edition

There was no indication why the refugees chose the Spanish Embassy. But the compound's front gate is usually left open, in contrast to more heavily guarded embassies.

The plight of North Koreans in China was thrown into the spotlight in June last year when a family of seven walked into the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Beijing and demanded political asylum.

After several days of delicate talks, China let the family go to South Korea via Singapore and the Philippines on humanitarian grounds, avoiding a standoff and bad press just before a vote on Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

Fearing an opening of a floodgate of potential refugees from its close ally, Beijing insists that North Koreans in China are not refugees, instead calling them economic migrants who must be sent home.

'Risk lives for freedom'

Two dozen Chinese paramilitary police entered the Spanish embassy compound on Thursday morning while another two dozen cordoned off the street on either side, witnesses told Reuters.

The North Korean embassy said it was looking into the case and there was no immediate comment from the Chinese government on a potentially embarrassing incident during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's parliament.

A statement from the Toyko-based Life Funds for North Korean Refugees said the six families had escaped from North Korea several times before but were forcibly repatriated by Chinese officials.

"We are now at the point of such desperation and live in such fear of persecution within North Korea that we have come to the decision to risk our lives for freedom rather than passively await our doom," the statement said.

"Some of us carry poison on our person to commit suicide if the Chinese authorities should choose once again to send us back to North Korea."

The Northern blight

The aslyum seekers celebrate after rushing past the guards

North Korea has suffered from years of drought, floods and fierce winters.

In a bid to help their Stalinist neighbor, China has quietly given North Korea food to help stave off famine that has stalked the country since the mid-1990s as well as coal for power.

China is bound by treaty with North Korea to repatriate fleeing North Koreans. Many have been sent back, but others have been able to live in hiding along China's northeastern border with North Korea.

South Korean aid groups say that between 150,000 and 300,000 North Koreans are scattered in the hills of northeast China.