Map of North Korea ( ASIAPRESS)
◆ The authorities are ending lockdowns to send more people to agricultural areas
―― Why are the authorities lifting lockdowns in only certain places?
A: The authorities are lifting lockdowns in places where there are factories and companies with many employees (without fever symptoms) who can be mobilized to agricultural areas. The delay in the planting season in rural areas must be severe due to the lack of labor. Only two weeks’ worth of food was distributed in late May. Some families have no more salt, and everybody is suffering because there’s shortages of everything. That explains why I’ve heard that the authorities will lift the lockdowns in the first part of June.
B: The authorities are lifting the lockdowns on certain factories, companies, government agencies, and inminban based on the number of fever cases, number of recoveries, and the number of people who don’t have symptoms. It’s all focused on sending more people to agricultural areas. Areas close to farms are creating guidelines for sending people to work in the fields and mobilizing all those who meet these guidelines.
D: In the agricultural area close to where I live, there’s been a ban on people leaving the area (since the COVID-19 outbreak). However, they are allowing people from the city to enter the area (to work on the farms).
―― What kind of guidelines have farming villages created to prevent the spread of the disease?
D: Temperature checks are conducted in each work team. Even if one member of a work team comes down with a fever, other members of that team are required to go to work. They are told to social distance as much as possible while working. They’ve also stopped morning roll calls.
※ Work teams are the smallest group of workers on collective farms. They are generally made up of 10 people.
※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.
- ＜A report from inside N. Korea＞Farmers face very difficult conditions with food shortages causing rampant starvation…Labor shortages mean many farm fields remain unweeded and unplanted…Crop yields are down because of recent droughts (2022-06-14)
- A look into N. Korea’s COVID-19 situation…The elderly and young are dying…The authorities determine infections using just temperature checks…Most people are recovering from their symptoms (2022-06-13)
- ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Facing the spread of starvation, N. Korean authorities distribute food for free in some urban areas (2022-06-01)
- ＜Inside N. Korea＞N. Korea’s largest iron mine shutdowns, markets close, and controls intensify daily due to COVID-19 in N. Hamgyong Province’s Musan County (2022-05-25)
- ＜N. Korea’s COVID-19 pandemic＞ Reports of people dying following the lockdown of Hyesan, Yanggang Province…The authorities fail to provide medicine and medicine to those in isolation…The Kim Jong-un regime is intent to prevent information leaks about the situation (2022-05-24)
