The North Korean government says the situation is under control, but what is really known about the scale of the crisis?
North Korea announced its first case of covid in early May.
The country’s government says the outbreak is under control, but the details remain a mystery. The BBC gathered information by talking to people who were able to communicate with North Korean residents and consulting public sources.
Voices from North Korea
Kim Hwang-sun was sitting alone in her kitchen at her home in Seoul, South Korea, when the phone rang. It was a Chinese agent who delivered the news he was waiting for. Your family can talk.
Hwang-sun fled North Korea alone 10 years ago. Her two children, grandchildren and mother of 85 are still in the country and have long since given up hope of getting them out one day.
These confidential phone calls are his only communication with his family. He knows not to ask too many questions in case he overhears. And keep conversations short, never longer than five minutes.
Two days ago, North Korea reported its first case of coronavirus. Data released by the government in an unprecedented announcement show that the virus is spreading rapidly to all provinces in the country.
“They told me a lot of people are sick with fever,” says Hwang-sun. “I got the impression that he was very serious. They said he asked everyone they met on the street for medicine. Everyone is looking for something to reduce this fever, but no one can find anything.”
Hwang-sun did not dare to ask the death toll. After all, if they’re heard talking about the murders, they might be considered critical of the government, and he fears his family might be killed.
lack of medication
According to official figures, about 15% of the population has so far been sick with “fever”. The absence of tests causes cases to be described in this way.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un acknowledged the lack of medicine and ordered the military to disperse its stockpiles.
According to Hwang-sun, hospitals and pharmacies in North Korea have been suffering from drug shortages for years. Doctors write the prescription and it’s up to the patient to find and buy what they need, whether it’s directly at home or from someone selling at a local market.
“If you need anesthesia for surgery, you have to go to the market, buy it, and bring it to the hospital,” says Kim Hwang-sun. “But now, even market vendors have no medicine.”
According to Hwang-sun’s family, “The government is telling us to boil the pine needles and drink the mixture.” State news also recommend gargling with salt water to relieve symptoms.
“This is what happens when you don’t have medicine. They go back to traditional medicine,” says Nagi Shafik, a doctor who has worked in North Korean villages for UNICEF since 2001.
When he last arrived in the country in 2019, the drugs were already out of stock. “There were some, but very, very few,” he says.
Nearly all drugs are imported from China, and closed borders over the past two years have disrupted that supply.
Sokeel Park of Liberty, the international organization in North Korea, is helping North Korean refugees settle in South Korea. Those who spoke to the family in North Korea said there was a rush for the drug. “Very little else was bought, resulting in huge price increases.”
national quarantine
The North Korean government ordered a nationwide curfew on the day the outbreak was announced.
The decision has raised concerns that some people may be starving and not finding food. But at least some of them managed to leave their homes to work and till the land.
Monitoring website NK News took photos along the South Korean border showing farm workers in the fields days after the lockdown was imposed. But in places with high infection rates (including the capital, Pyongyang), there have been reports of people being confined to their homes.
Lee Sang-yong is responsible for the Daily NK website. He lives in Seoul and has a resource network in North Korea. He says that in the city of Hyesan (on the border with China), people are prohibited from leaving their homes for 10 days in May. According to his source, more than a dozen people, weakened by lack of food, were found unconscious at home when the curfew was lifted.
So far, 70 deaths have been officially reported in North Korea, which would represent a Covid death rate of 0.002% – the lowest rate in the world.
“These numbers don’t make sense in a country with a fragile healthcare system where no one is vaccinated,” says Martyn Williams, who tracks data from 38 North’s analytics platform.
He points out another odd detail. While the number of cases continued to increase, there was a sudden increase in deaths. “We know that Covid-19 deaths tend to follow infections two to three weeks later. So we know these numbers are wrong, but we don’t know why,” he said.
Williams explains that in addition to false reporting at the national level, local health officials may not want to acknowledge how many people have died for fear of punishment.
international aid
In late May, the number of new cases reported in North Korea fell. An editorial in the country’s state newspaper claimed that authorities were “suppressing and controlling the spread of the virus”.
Unicef said its local employees returned to its Pyongyang office after coming out of quarantine.
In a statement from the World Health Organization (WHO), doctor in charge of health emergencies Mike Ryan said he feared the situation would “get much worse than better”. He said he denied access to North Korea’s data, “making it very difficult to provide adequate analysis to the world”.
Ryan also stated that they offered to send vaccines and aid several times. But North Korea seems to quietly rely on China’s neighbors as its suppliers.
Chinese customs data shows that North Korea’s imports from China doubled between March and April. Although imports increased steadily in 2022 after the borders were closed for two years, there has been a spike in the purchase of medical supplies in recent months.
In April, North Korea imported 1,000 “fans” from China – the first batch since the start of the pandemic, according to Chinese customs data. The term “fan” may also refer to other smaller types of oxygen treatment machinery in Chinese data.
Between January and April, North Korea also purchased more than nine million face masks. There are no mask import records for the previous two years in the Chinese customs data. There was also an increase in imports of drugs and vaccines.
North Korea sent three cargo planes to China on May 17 to ask for help, according to a South Korean government official.
Satellite imagery from May 24 shows three cargo planes from North Korea’s state-owned airline Air Koryo at Pyongyang airport. Its dimensions are the same as the three planes seen at Shenyang Airport in China a few days ago.
On the other hand, a source reported that on May 13, a large batch of medical supplies arrived at Nampo port, south of Pyongyang, by ship.
The BBC obtained satellite images on May 15 that revealed the presence of a large number of ships in the port area. However, since many of them had their navigation trackers turned off, it was not possible to detect where they came from and what they were carrying.
Kim Hwang-sun has not heard from his family in North Korea since the first phone call.
He says it has become much more difficult to talk to them since the epidemic began. Phone signals are frequently interfered with, and the line is often cut off if he manages to speak occasionally. Your friends are experiencing the same situation.
Deeply shaken by anxiety about what might have happened since they last spoke to his 85-year-old mother, he climbed to the top of a local mountain to pray for her. That’s all he can do. Like the rest of the world, he’s in the dark and can’t help it.
* Some names have been changed in the report to conserve resources.
source: Noticias
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