A group of 36 North Koreans who had sought refuge in various embassies in Beijing, China, have arrived in South Korea.

China has beefed up security around its foreign embassies

One group of 15, who less than a week ago had scaled the walls of a German embassy school in Beijing, arrived in the capital Seoul via Singapore.

A second group of 21 North Koreans who had spent several weeks sheltering in the South Korean embassy in Beijing had arrived an hour earlier after travelling via the Philippines.

It is the largest group of North Koreans to arrive in Seoul in one day, and brings the total of asylum seekers to enter the country this year so far to more than 100.

"It feels like a dream," one man told journalists as he arrived at the airport.

Delicate negotiations

Both groups were taken for questioning by government officials, and will go through a process of orientation for several months before being permitted to live as South Korean citizens.

The group of 15 asylum seekers was the subject of delicate negotiations between Germany and Chinese officials which ended last Thursday.

It is a positive outcome for the asylum seekers who - in the face of growing security around embassies in Beijing - took the risk of breaking into the school.

There was confusion about whether the compound housing the school was German or Chinese territory, and a stand-off developed.

Fleeing repression

But China, sensitive to international opinion, was aware of the cost of forcibly removing the asylum seekers to send them back to an uncertain fate.

The remaining 21 South Korean asylum seekers had trickled into the country's embassy in Beijing since late June.

More than 100 North Koreans have smuggled themselves into diplomatic premises in China this year.

They are fleeing starvation and repression in North Korea and a Chinese Government policy of forcibly repatriating illegal North Koreans discovered to have escaped over the border.