Ling & Lee make statement

Thumbnail image for freelauraeunacrop.jpg"We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers," Laura Ling and Euna Lee say at the Current TV website, their first report on what ensued the day they were captured on the China-North Korea border and in the months of captivity after. "They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained." More excerpts:

After arriving home, we were disoriented, overwhelmed and not ready to talk about the experience. There are things that are still too painful to revisit, but we do want to explain what took us to northeastern China and the circumstances of our arrest....

We didn't spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but it is a minute we deeply regret. To this day, we still don't know if we were lured into a trap. In retrospect, the guide behaved oddly, changing our starting point on the river at the last moment and donning a Chinese police overcoat for the crossing, measures we assumed were security precautions. But it was ultimately our decision to follow him, and we continue to pay for that decision today with dark memories of our captivity.

It's also posted at LATimes.com as an op-ed article. Can't tell on which site it originated.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee chronology


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Morning Buzz: Wednesday 4.25.12

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