North Korea has used the Covid-19 pandemic to seal its northern border with China said international human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a BBC report. This has led to “intensifying repression” from the regime with “drastically reduced” cross-order movement and trade according to the report.
Pyongyang first cut off its China border in 2020. According to the report fencing covered 321 kilometres, which was up from 230 kilometres pre-pandemic HRW said in the report entitled ‘A Sense of Terror Stronger than a Bullet: The Closing of North Korea 2018-2023.’
According to Al Jazeera, the HRW report also stated increased watchtowers and border guards along the fence has made it impossible for many North Koreans to leave. Statistics revealed by HRW show that the number of defectors fell from 1,047 in 2019 to a low of 63 in 2021, and then 196 last year.
The report stated that formal and informal commercial trade has also stopped since the pandemic began, the report said citing interviews with 16 North Korean defectors. It urged the UNSC to review current sanctions on North Korea and the measures states take to enforce them. They also urged the UN and other governments to push for dialogue with North Korea.
“North Koreans have lived in deprivation and isolation for decades,” the report said. “The UN Security Council and concerned governments should press Kim Jong Un to end the country’s systematic human rights abuses and begin a dialogue to reopen the country to the outside world.”
The report’s focus on dialogue come just as tensions between North Korea and its neighbouring state South Korea have reached dangerous highs. Recently North Korea’s state news agency KCNA released videos of North Korean soldiers practising war drills such as artillery firing, and GPS jamming signals near the South Korean border.
The war drills are seen as a response to ongoing joint military exercises between South Korea and the US.
