Lee's wife and young son are attempting to join him in South Korea
A woman who has pleaded with the Chinese president Xi Jinping not to forcibly repatriate his wife and young son, saying they face imprisonment or death if sent home.
The woman and her 19-year-old son is understood to have been a group of 10 Koreans detained in China last week after secretly crossing the border.
The man, who asked to be identified only as Lee, fled to South Korea in 2015. He recorded his wife and son would "either face execution or wither away in a political prison camp" if sent back to North Korea.
"I wish China's Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump would think of my son as his grandchild and send my son to the free country, South Korea," he said.
"Please help us. Save my family from repatriation."
He said he was haunted by images of his young son in detention.
"I can almost hear my baby calling my name," he said. "I can see my baby in that cold cell, crying out for his father."
The group of 10 defectors was arrested in a raid on a safe house in Shenyang in Liaoning province, north-east China, on November 4.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a news briefing that she was unaware of details of the case. (19459011)
The arrests come amid a crackdown by China on North Korean defectors. Chinese security services have apprehended at least 49 North Koreans in the three months between July and September, according to the charity Human Rights Watch - a significant jump from the 51 people recorded as having been detained over the entire previous 12 months.
"North Korean refugees and their families overseas deserve international support," according to Human Rights Watch.
North Korea refugees and their families overseas deserve international support " said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for the charity, said in a statement.
"Governors around the world and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees should call on China to stop sending North Koreans back across the border to face torture, forced labor, sexual abuse, and worse, "he said.
Lord Alton, who is chair of the UK's cross-party parliamentary group on North Korea, told the BBC he had u rged the British government to intervene
"Anyone who has read the United Nations' report on North Korea's crimes against humanity knows that escapees face torture, imprisonment, forced labor or even execution," he said.
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The border between the two Koreas is heavily policed
China forcibly repatriates North Koreans despite being a party to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which obliges signatures not to return refugees if it may put them at risk of persecution or torture.
In 2014, the UN Commission on Inquiry on Human Rights said that North Korea was responsible for "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations" and "crimes against humanity".
"The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," its report said. ]
The number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea dropped by 13% this year officials in Seoul say. From January to August, 780 North Koreans escaped to South Korea, the Unification Ministry said.
The fall is believed to be a result of tighter government surveillance and reinforced border security by both North Korea and China.
Mr Lee's appeal comes as the US president tours the region. Mr Trump met with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-In on Wednesday before traveling to China to meet with Mr. Xi the following day.
Speaking in front of South Korea's parliament, Korean North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, calling North Korea a "country ruled as a cult"
"At the center of this military cult is a deranged belief in the leader's destiny to rule as parent protector over a conquered Korean peninsula and an enslaved Korean people, "he said.
