A UN expert warned that North Korea’s unprecedented self-isolation since the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic has “exacerbated the suffering” of its people.
Elizabeth Salmon, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), on Tuesday called on the international community to pay “urgent” attention to the situation. decline in North Koreans’ access to food, medicine, and health. . care about.
Salmon’s comments on the reclusive nation were the subject of a report at the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council.
“People froze to death during the January cold this year,” she said. “People don’t have money to heat their homes or even they are forced to live on the streets because they have had to sell their homes as a last resort.”
Highlighting the international border control measures that North Korea put in place in response to the pandemic in January 2020, she said most of the international staff from the United Nations, humanitarian agencies and other international agencies. Diplomatic missions were unable to return home. She added that the number of people crossing the border to South Korea has also decreased significantly.
“I’m really concerned about the impact of three years of border closures on the people of North Korea,” the expert said, pointing out the special plight of women working in informal markets, who are people living in poverty, the elderly, the homeless and homeless children.
She warned that violence against women, already rampant, could worsen as women lose economic power.
“Women have lost the means to support their families when market activities plummeted,” she said, adding that the international community had been unable to provide humanitarian aid.