＜Samjiyeon Construction Project＞ Labor and electricity diverted to Samjiyeon as panicked party officials pay workers personally to rush completion

Map of northern North Korea

◆Medical students dispatched to the special tourist zone

Samjiyeon County, which Kim Jong-un plans to turn into a world-class tourist zone, is a woodland area at the foot of Mt. Baekdu. However, as the current workforce is insufficient, prospective graduates of Hyesan Medical University are being 'dispatched in mass’ to the site.

According to a reporting partner, "Since the Yanggang Provincial Party unilaterally decided to mobilize the medical students, substantial discontent has surfaced among the students and their parents. Some parents are making their children drop out of school, claiming illness, to avoid the forced mobilization. Only a few will be able to do this, however, as the mobilization is a very strict order."

North Korea operates under a ‘One-Ideology System,’ where the entire population must pledge absolute loyalty and obedience to a single leader. High-ranking officials who fail to carry out prescribed tasks are often demoted, stripped of their post, or banished. (Kang Ji-won)

※ ASIAPRESS contacts its reporting partners through Chinese mobile phones smuggled into North Korea.

Editor’s notes on North Korean reporters
ALL REPORTS >>>
ARCHIVE(pdf) >>
DPRK MAP >>