”I want to be close to my children” - Vietnamese woman who became homeless under a bridge in Seoul (South Korea)

A Vietnamese immigrant woman who had been living as homeless under Jungnang Bridge in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul for five years has been arrested and put on trial on suspicion of attempted arson.
According to the Dongdaemun Police Station and the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office on the 22nd, the defendant, surnamed Hyun (44), was arrested and indicted on charges of attempted arson of a public building and special damage to property on the 4th of this month, and will appear in court next month.
Defendant Hyeon, who had been living as a homeless person in a tent under Jungnang Bridge since 2019, had a sad story. After marrying her intellectually disabled Korean husband, Hyeon gave birth to a child and raised it.
The defendant divorced in 2016 due to conflicts with her mother-in-law. Defendant Hyun claimed, "I suffered from verbal abuse from my mother-in-law and was often assaulted." She did not study Korean despite being fluent in the language, and was forced to live with her children.
The reason given was that she had not properly taken care of her husband. After her divorce, Hyeon, who was on welfare, lived in a gosiwon (a temporary housing facility), a jimjilbang (a Korean sauna), and a women's home.
After moving from one homeless shelter to another for about two years, he began living by the Jungnangcheon Stream in 2019. The Dongdaemun District Office offered Hyun housing and Korean language support, but Hyun refused.
Hyun refused all of them. He was living in a tent and had no address, so he was unable to fulfill the conditions for receiving welfare, such as looking for a job, and for about five years he was unable to receive welfare.
A district office official explained, "We tried to persuade her several times, but she strongly refused, so it was difficult to provide her with welfare support."
Defendant Hyun, who had not responded to the district office's repeated requests to leave, moved into the district office's warehouse near the Jungnangcheon gateball court on March 26 this year.
They smashed the machinery in the warehouse with a hammer and set it on fire. Fortunately, only some of the materials caught fire, and the fire was put out after about 20 minutes. No casualties.
Hyun told investigators, "I was angry because of the people who cleaned up Jungnangcheon Stream.
"The people put up a sign on the tent telling me to leave and had me stand in front of it and take a picture," she said. When asked why she was living in the tent, she said, "I was being bullied, so I went to the shelter.
"I didn't want to go back to the facility and wanted to be close to where my children live," she said.