Guinean man to finally get refugee application hearing after five months of airport hamburgers
Published: 24 Sep. 2025, 19:05
Updated: 26 Sep. 2025, 13:35
![Hamburgers given to a man from Guinea stranded at Gimhae International Airport for five months [BUSAN ULSAN SOUTH GYEONGSANG JOINT COMMITTEE FOR MIGRANT RIGHTS]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/09/26/f0dfa257-8b4c-4fa2-837e-a83b242d9176.jpg)
Hamburgers given to a man from Guinea stranded at Gimhae International Airport for five months [BUSAN ULSAN SOUTH GYEONGSANG JOINT COMMITTEE FOR MIGRANT RIGHTS]
A Guinean man in his 30s who was stranded at the airport for five months after being denied entry to Korea will finally have a court hearing to determine if he can apply for refugee status.
The Busan District Court ruled in favor of the man on Wednesday, overturning a decision by the Gimhae International Airport immigration office to reject his refugee application without review.
The man arrived at Gimhae International Airport on April 27 and immediately applied for refugee status, claiming political persecution after participating in anti-military dictatorship protests in Guinea, according to the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang joint committee for migrant rights, a civic organization. The Justice Ministry had dismissed his application, citing a lack of credibility in his statements and failure to meet formal requirements.
Refusing to return to his home country, the man has remained in an immigration holding area on the airport’s second floor ever since — the first such airport refugee case at Gimhae. He is expected to stay at the airport until a higher court makes a final ruling.
Unlike Incheon International Airport, which provides external facilities for applicants who win initial rulings, Gimhae International Airport has no such infrastructure in place.
![Crowds of travelers wait in line to depart at Gimhae International Airport ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays on Jan. 26. [JOONGANG PHOTO]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/09/26/b0d4ca76-6c0a-41c2-9ca9-46bbf99e7f69.jpg)
Crowds of travelers wait in line to depart at Gimhae International Airport ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays on Jan. 26. [JOONGANG PHOTO]
According to the civic organization speaking on behalf of the Guinean man, over 98 percent of the meals the airport provided him were hamburgers, despite the man being a Muslim, for whom hamburgers fall short of his religious and cultural needs.
“Feeding a Muslim man nothing but hamburgers three times a day is a blatant human rights violation,” a spokesperson from the organization said, urging the government to ensure that the man is granted access to proper refugee screening.
The civic group is scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday at 10 a.m. in front of the National Human Rights Commission’s Busan office, where it will file an official complaint over alleged rights violations at the airport’s immigration holding area.
A total of 122,095 people applied for refugee status in Korea between 1994 and the end of 2024, of which only 1,544 individuals — or 1.2 percent — were granted refugee status, according to the Ministry of Justice. The approval rate for 2024 was 1.75 percent.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY LEE EUN-JI [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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