Pyongyang has increased border security since January 2020, according to satellite images.
North Korea has dramatically increased border restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbating shortages of food, medicine and other essential goods, according to a report from a human rights group.
North Korean authorities have implemented “extensive and unnecessary measures against Covid-19” since January 2020, including high fences, checkpoints and patrol roads, monitoring of satellite images by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The border strengthening measures include the addition of 169 checkpoints and about 20km (12 miles) of new fencing near the border town of Hoeryung, a popular entry and trading point, between November 2020 and April 2022.
HRW says it has spoken to five North Korean terrorists who have been working illegally inside or outside the remote country since February 2020.
“The North Korean government used measures known as COVID-19 to further suppress and endanger the North Korean people,” said Lina Yoon, HRW’s senior Korea researcher.
“The government must improve its capacity to improve access to food, vaccines and medicine, and respect the right to travel and other rights.”
Yoon said that past experience showed that relying on the government to distribute food and essential items “only increases oppression and can lead to famine and other disasters”.
North Korea, ruled by third-generation leader Kim Jong-un, became the first country to seal its borders in response to COVID-19 in January 2020, banning nearly all international travel and severely limiting economic activity with neighboring China, the source said. more than 90 percent of its sales.
The host country is among the poorest countries in Asia, with more than 40 percent of people undernourished and in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the World Food Programme.
In August, Pyongyang announced that it had defeated the virus, after it blamed its first outbreak on neighboring South Korea.
Officials say only 74 people have died from the virus despite reporting more than 4.7 million infections.
Medical experts have questioned the number of deaths due to North Korea’s poor health system and lack of vaccinations, as well as the spread of the virus elsewhere.
