The group, whose ages range from a child of four to adults in their 40s, were arrested on 4th November 2017 when police raided the house where they were sheltering in Shenyang, northeast China.

According to the father of the four year-old child, they were forcibly repatriated to North Korea a few days ago.

CSW said he had appealed to the Chinese authorities not to return his wife and child to North Korea.

The charity strongly criticised China for its actions.

Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at CSW, said: “This is an absolutely inhumane decision by China and a gross violation of the international principle of non-refoulement.

“We call on the international community to take steps to convey its outrage to China over this extreme cruelty, and to ensure that North Korea refrains from any repercussions against these ten individuals.”

Rogers added that China needs to review why it sent the group back to North Korea and should stop “violations of international norms”.

He said: “China’s decision in this and previous cases make it an accomplice to North Korea’s crimes against humanity.”

In 2014, The UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea found that “the gravity, scale and nature” of human rights violations in North Korea “reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”.

The Chinese government has a policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean defectors within its borders, despite the fact that this puts the returnees at…

According to National Geographic, new tests carried out by scientists suggest that Jesus’ tomb may be 1,700 years old. Previous evidence dated it back just 1,000 years.

The scientists tested the remains of a limestone cave enshrined within Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is known to be the burial place of Jesus.

The results suggested that the remains are remnants of the tomb which were located by the ancient Romans. Many historians have claimed the Romans made a monument at the site 300 years after Jesus’s death.

The National Technical University of Athens, which carried out the research, said the findings don’t give further proof that Jesus was buried in the tomb, but it does certify that the original construction of the tomb was during the time of Constantine, Rome’s first Christian emperor.

Data from the Pew Research Center revealed that nearly all Orthodox Ethiopians (98 per cent) said religion is very important to them, compared with a median of 34 per cent of Orthodox which said this across 13 countries surveyed in Central and Eastern Europe.

About three-quarters of Orthodox Ethiopians also said they attend church every week, compared with a median of just 10 per cent in Central and Eastern Europe.

While Russia has the largest Orthodox population in the world, just 6 per cent in the country said they attended church on a weekly basis.

The East African nation, which with 36 million Orthodox Christians make it the world’s second-largest Orthodox population are also more likely than Orthodox Christians in Central and Eastern Europe to wear religious symbols (93 per cent vs 64 per cent), to say they believe in God with absolute certainty (89 per cent vs 56 per cent), and to tithe (57 per cent vs 14 per cent).

According to the Pew Research Center, Orthodox Christians have been declining as a share of the overall global Christian population due to far faster growth among Protestants, Catholics and non-Christians.

However, in sharp contrast the Ethiopian Orthodox community “is highly observant and growing”.

In a statement, Bishop William Nolan and Bishop Paul McAleenan said: “Their presence is discouraged by the authorities; police tactics include interrupting sleep and confiscating tents and sleeping bags.”

They want unaccompanied minors’ rights as children to be recognised by both French and UK authorities.

“Aid agencies report that the policies of the British government have resulted in young people turning to people smugglers in attempts to reach the UK.

“We ask both UK and French governments to develop infrastructures to enable dignified living in Calais.”

They also raised concern that families have been split-up and ask for children to be reunited with their parents.

Bishop William and Bishop Paul added: “As the season of Advent begins, we are reminded again that the Holy Family were themselves refugees forced to flee their home seeking sanctuary in a foreign land.”