The international community must act on evidence that crimes against humanity are being committed in North Korea, says a long-awaited UN report.
A panel of experts mandated by the UN's Human Rights Council said North Koreans had suffered 'unspeakable atrocities', and that those responsible, including leader Kim Jong-un, must face justice.
The panel heard evidence of torture, political repression and other crimes.
Pyongyang refused to co-operate with the report and rejects its conclusions.
The UN commission said Mr Kim had failed to respond to an advance copy of the report, and a letter which warned him he could be held personally responsible for abuses.
Testimony given to the panel from defectors included an account of a woman forced to drown her own baby, children imprisoned from birth and starved, and families tortured for watching a foreign soap opera.
Michael Kirby, chairman of the independent Commission of Inquiry, said the report 'calls for attention from the international community'.
'At the end of the Second World War so many people said 'if only we had known... if only we had known the wrongs that were done in the countries of the hostile forces',' he said.
'Well, now the international community does know... There will be no excusing of failure of action because we didn't know,' he said, at a news conference at UN headquarters in Geneva.
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