Shin Hyun-joon and Wife Meet a Hungry 10-Year-Old and a Young Breadwinner at a Burundi Refugee Camp

Actor Shin Hyun-joon and his wife, Kim Kyung-mi, visit a refugee camp in Burundi, Africa, through KBS 1TV's Love Across the Sea Season 6. The episode airing at 1:30 p.m. on the 28th follows the couple as they head to Buhumuza in Burundi to meet refugees who have fled Congo.

Burundi is home to striking natural scenery, but many residents continue to live in severe poverty after a long history of civil war and amid weak social infrastructure. More recently, refugees escaping civil war in neighboring Congo have been gathering at Busuma refugee camp, pushing local reception facilities and available resources to their limits.

The Busuma refugee camp visited by Shin and Kim is a place where people have gathered after crossing the border to escape the conflict in South Kivu, Congo, last December. Refugees had to walk for more than a week before reaching the camp, but the already overcrowded site lacks even the most basic facilities needed for survival, including food, drinking water and toilets.

At the camp, the couple meets 10-year-old Mercy. She lost her parents during the flight from conflict and was able to settle only with help from neighbors. Because her refugee registration has not yet been completed, however, she cannot even receive food distribution, the most basic form of emergency relief. Mercy says, "I have not been registered as a refugee yet, so I cannot receive rations. I think I will go hungry again today," voicing fear over her immediate survival.

Mercy is not the only child in the camp forced to confront adult responsibilities at a young age. Twelve-year-old Biyato lost his father two years ago and his mother last year, leaving him on his own. His daily life has become a relentless cycle of labor for survival.

Every day, Biyato swings a heavy hammer at a blacksmith's workshop to make knives. Burn scars left from the work show the pain he has endured. After finishing at the forge, he cuts down trees taller than himself to make charcoal, then walks barefoot for two hours to the market to sell it. After a full day of work, his payment amounts to only one bag of sorghum.

Biyato says, "My mother was with me before, but now I have to take responsibility for everything by myself," describing the weight he carries as a child who has become the head of his household. Shin Hyun-joon and Kim Kyung-mi's visit is presented as a journey that reveals the reality faced by refugees living amid the wounds of war and poverty, while also offering them comfort.

The episode airs on KBS 1TV on the 28th.