North Korea

The latest Digital 2024 Global Reports showed that only fewer than 1,000 people in North Korea have access to the Internet. This small group of people is likely composed of foreign expatriates and those coming from North Korea’s political elite.

The report also showed that there are currently 7.51 million mobile connections in North Korea or 28.7% of its total population. This reflects a 2.8% increase or around 260,000 new mobile connections from the start of 2023 until January 2024.

Although the majority of North Koreans are not online, the interest in North Korean-related topics remains high outside the secretive nation. The keyword “North Korea” has a monthly average of 500,000 searches, while “Kim Jong-Un” has more than 350,000 monthly searches.

Fake IDs have been very helpful in giving defectors in China some peace of mind. But now that even these are disappearing, many defectors are growing increasingly pessimistic about their undocumented status and inability to travel freely.

“Defectors in China are feeling increasingly insecure,” the source said. “The only way for them to live safely is to go to South Korea, but since even that option is now far too difficult, the psychological strain they are suffering is growing.”

As North Korea and Russia forge closer ties, North Korean and Russian authorities are cooperating more closely than before on matters related to North Korean workers in Russia, Daily NK has learned.

“All the safe houses and routes used by North Korean workers defecting from Russia were discovered after Kim Jong Un met with Putin, and [defectors] are afraid even to visit the UN [refugee agency],” a source in Russia told Daily NK on Jan. 26, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The source said North Korean workers in Russia have been under tighter control since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. In addition, Russian authorities have worked to uncover defection routes, which has discouraged sympathetic Russians from contacting North Korean workers or helping them defect.

According to the source, North Korean authorities issued orders to North Korean companies in Russia on Jan. 22, reiterating the need for companies to report on all their business dealings in the country, to strictly monitor and control managers’ and workers’ access to the outside Internet and Internet searches on their cell phones, and to cooperate with Russian intelligence agencies to track down anyone who attempts to defect.

“Managers of North Korean companies say that tens of thousands of [North Korean] workers will come to Russia to work in various fields, including construction sites. That’s why the North Korean authorities are stepping up ideological training and enforcement for workers currently in Russia and working with Russian intelligence agencies to prevent defections,” the source said.

Given the mood on the ground, the source said, some North Korean workers who recently fled their companies in Russia have gone into hiding and are too afraid of being caught to contact the UN refugee agency in Russia. These workers are doubtful that the agency can ensure their safety.

“Before Kim Jong Un met Putin, the Ministry of State Security only cooperated with Russian intelligence in arresting and repatriating defectors if they were high-ranking or otherwise important to the government. But now the cooperation has increased tenfold, making it harder for ordinary workers to defect,” the source said.

I've been out of the loop for a bit. I know Un's health is being questioned. Is his sister, Kim Yo-jong, ready to take over? Do you think this could happen?

Russia plans to build an “industrial and trade park” to showcase goods from North Korea and China, according to a government official in charge of a region along the DPRK border.

Primorsky Krai governor Oleg Kozhemyako announced the scheme on Sunday during a visit to China’s Yanbian-Korean Autonomous Prefecture, also near North Korea.

“There are plans to create a commercial and industrial park featuring products from Russia, China and North Korea in Primorsky Krai,” according to a press release from the Primorsky Krai government, citing Kozhemyako.

The trade zone “will give momentum to the development of trilateral international cooperation,” the regional head added, expressing confidence that “the DPRK will actively join these processes” as soon as it removes COVID-19-related restrictions.

A Primorsky Krai spokesperson told NK News that the project has not been finalized and is still “in the works,” without providing additional information.

Kozhemyako suggested that North Korea’s “vast labor resources” could be deployed for this project but did not elaborate.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 2397, which was adopted in 2017 and entered into force shortly before the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019, bans North Koreans from working overseas in an attempt to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and weapons programs.

In April, Kozhemyako called on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to ramp up economic investment and development in his region, explicitly emphasizing the need to improve the outdated Soviet-era transport infrastructure.

Russia shares a 10-mile (17-km) border with North Korea, and Primorksky Krai serves as a critical logistical juncture connecting the two countries, with a railroad bridge across the Tumangang River. Russia has used the border crossing to deliver wheat, corn and other staples to the DPRK as the country faces starvation amid severe shortages.

Cross-border trade between North Korea and Russia resumed in Nov. 2022 with a rail shipment of 30 horses, the first reported shipment between the two sides in nearly three years due to the DPRK’s strict COVID-19 border controls.

During his recent visit to China, governor Kozhemyako cited contemporary work on “the modernization of border crossings” and “accelerated development” in his jurisdiction.

Primorsky Krai’s favorable geography “will increase trade flow, allow our peoples to get acquainted with cultural and sports programs and increase mutually beneficial economic cooperation,” Kozhemyako said in a meeting with Hu Jiafu, head of Yanbian-Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

The statement comes after Moscow and Pyongyang signaled their willingness to intensify cooperation since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine last year.

North Korea has openly backed Russia’s invasion, while the North’s foreign minister Choe Sun Hui recently stated that Moscow and Pyongyang are ushering in a new “heyday” in friendly ties.

DPRK has ignored multiple offers to repatriate remains of suspected citizens, including children, since last year

The body of a man in his 20s who drowned in a possible attempt to escape North Korea will be cremated, Seoul announced Friday, after the DPRK ignored entreaties to accept the remains.

ROK authorities recovered the body last month in waters off the coast of Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul. He was identified as North Korean from a train ticket and other belongings, including what intelligence officials initially thought was an illicit drug but turned out to be a white powder used to treat skin disease.

“South Korea will treat the man as an unclaimed body,” unification ministry deputy spokesperson Lee Hyo-jung said Friday. Domestic law calls for any deceased not claimed by relatives to be cremated.

Local media has reported that the man was likely a defector and had styrofoam attached to his body to help him stay afloat.

However, it is not uncommon for bodies of North Korean adults and children to be discovered near waterways along the inter-Korean border, especially after inclement weather.

Following monsoon rains last year, the bodies of a male infant and two children under 10 years old were recovered in rivers and tidal flats northwest of Seoul, along with the corpse of a woman wearing a Kim leader badge. The DPRK did not respond to requests from the South to accept these bodies.

At the same time, Seoul predicts more defections by sea in the near future due to severe food shortages.

An entire family escaped from North Korea in waters close to where the man’s body was found the same month, telling authorities that conditions were so poor in the country that they became disillusioned with the regime.

North Korea has ignored all known outreach attempts since early April, when it stopped answering twice-daily calls through hotlines managed by the unification ministry and ROK military.

Three Chinese detention centers known or suspected to hold North Korean escapees have undergone extensive renovation during the pandemic, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery, raising the possibility that China is increasing its capacity to detain defectors ahead of their forced repatriation.

The expansion of the facilities comes as experts have expressed fears about a rise in defectors detained in China since 2020, when the DPRK closed its border to keep out COVID-19. The U.N. special rapporteur for North Korean human rights estimated last year that over 1,500 North Koreans are languishing in Chinese prisons.

NK Pro analysis reveals that one of the facilities that has undergone significant construction is the Helong Public Security Border Control Facility, which the Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) has identified as one of China’s main detention centers for undocumented North Koreans.

High-resolution Google Earth satellite imagery shows that two new structures were erected on the main premises of the Helong facility during the summer of 2021, while the main building underwent renovation.

The facility also upgraded its main watch tower overlooking the border and the area around it, building new fencing, three new structures and what may be a smaller watch tower.

Helong Public Security Border Control Facility, Sept 2019:

Helong Public Security Border Control Facility, Oct 2022:

Hanna Song, a director at NKDB, told NK Pro that the construction raises “compelling questions” about what necessitated expanding “this particular detention center.”

“In the past, we had access to North Korean escapees who had managed to flee to safety, providing crucial insights into the human rights violations they encountered,” she said. “But the lack of direct access [to the facilities] hampers our ability to monitor conditions within these facilities.”

Ethan Hee-seok Shin of the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group said China’s opacity makes it “difficult to judge” if the new construction is tied to DPRK refugees.

“However, these satellite images are worrying and the international community needs to call upon the Chinese government to reveal if these facilities are housing the North Korean detainees and also to disclose the full number of North Koreans currently detained and awaiting repatriation to North Korea,” he told NK Pro.

NKDB has recorded the testimonies of at least 27 North Koreans who were incarcerated at the Helong detention center ahead of their repatriation to a jail operated by the DPRK’s Ministry of State Security in Musan County.

“I was interrogated a lot,” one defector told NKDB. “[The border police] asked me, ‘Why are they trying to get you out? Is there any huge disadvantage if you go back to North Korea? Have you met any South Koreans [in China]?’ I was also asked about Christianity.”

Another defector detained at Helong said they were forced to strip naked for a full-body search and made to wear a prisoner’s uniform before their repatriation to North Korea.

Song of NKDB called foreign observers’ inability to access Chinese prisons like the one in Helong “deeply troubling, as it can lead to impunity, an increase in human rights violations and a lack of accountability.”

MORE PRISONS

In addition to the Helong facility, NK Pro has identified two other likely Chinese detention centers near the border that expanded in recent years, both in areas where authorities commonly arrest North Korean escapees.

The first facility is located in Hunchun, just five miles from the North Korean border.

Detention facility in Hunchun, China, just five miles from the DPRK border, Nov 2019:

The same facility, April 2022:

Three roughly 65-foot-long (20-meter) structures were built between the prison’s outer and inner walls between 2020 and 2020, satellite imagery shows, while an existing building was expanded by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Both NKDB and KoreaFuture have reported that China has held defectors at a facility called the Hunchun Border Detention Center. Neither organization has identified its precise location, but NK Pro was unable to locate any other prisons in Hunchun near the border, suggesting that the facility five miles from the border is the Hunchun Border Detention Center.

Anti-Slavery International, a London-based advocacy group, has also described Hunchun as one of the main areas where China detains North Koreans ahead of their forced repatriation.

The second facility that saw renovations is a large-scale detention center in Kuandian, some 20 miles (32 km) from the DPRK border.

NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery indicates that the facility built a nearly 200-foot-long (60-meter) prison cell block surrounded by a more than 900-foot-long (275-meter) wall in 2021. This came after the Dandong government announced that it had awarded a local construction company an assignment to build a nearly 28,000-square-foot (2,600-square-meter) detention facility in Kuandian County.

Detention facility in Kuandian, China, Dec 2020:

The same facility in Jan 2022:

The Kuandian detention center is a general prison rather than a facility specifically for detaining undocumented immigrants, but Song of NKDB noted that Kuandian County is located east of the border city of Dandong, where many North Koreans are caught and detained.

AWAITING THEIR FATE

As rumors swirl that North Korea could soon reopen its borders, Song emphasized that defectors detained in China face a “horrifying fate” if forcibly repatriated.

“Arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, and even execution are the grim realities they face,” she told NK Pro. “The fear they carry is not unfounded; it is well-documented and based on countless testimonies of those who have managed to escape the oppressive regime.”

Song is one of four experts who will testify before the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Tuesday to urge Beijing to refrain from repatriating escapees, something it has long been known to do.

“We also call upon China to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to the detention facilities where North Korean refugees are held,” she said.

In a recent report, U.N. special envoy for DPRK human rights Elizabeth Salmon wrote that repatriated defectors are labeled “criminals” and almost certainly imprisoned. She added that North Korean women are “subjected to torture and ill-treatment, forced labor and gender-based violence, including sexual violence by state officials” while detained.

But when a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recently confronted China about forced repatriations and related human rights violations, Chinese diplomats said the country does not keep data on the number of defectors in its detention centers.

At the committee session in Geneva last month, a Chinese official reiterated Beijing’s stance that North Korean defectors come to China for “economic reasons,” disqualifying them for protection. Another official added that North Koreans engaging in illegal activities “will be sent back to their country.”