Daily NK has learned that workers brought in last year to farm land formerly occupied by Camp 22, one of North Korea’s notorious network of political prison camps, are leaching out of the camp zone and back to their former homes. This, according to a number of sources from the Hoiryeong region, is due to the state’s failure to provide adequate farm equipment or, more recently, food distribution.
Kim, a source living in Eundeok County, one of the regions from which the new residents of Camp 22 were originally drawn, told Daily NK on the 30th, “Monthly distribution for people working on the farm that came into being with the closure of Camp 22 stopped in April, so they are returning to Saebyeol and Eundeok counties.”
“That’s not the only problem,” Kim went on. “The equipment and facilities that had been used by prisoners for things like processing grain are all in an appalling state, making for absolutely dismal conditions for farming in.”
“Among all the moribund pieces of equipment there are actually some that appear to be usable, but most are worthless,” Kim clarified. “The farm workers want to try and get the broken pieces working again, but they don’t have the right tools or parts to do it. So they are just leaving it all to rust.”
According to Kim, when workers were first persuaded to move to the former Camp 22 site by the North Korean authorities, they were promised stable food distribution based on family size. However, even though that promise was initially kept, the living and working situation there was so undesirable that some immediately started drifting away.
“Workers were already complaining about the poor equipment,” Kim said, “but then their distribution was cut in April and they started leaving in larger numbers. The farm management tried to stop them going at the start, but after distribution was cut their position became entirely untenable.”
According to Kim, the current state of affairs is threatening to halt the operation of the farm completely.
A second source from nearby Hoiryeong City was able to verify Kim’s story, agreeing, “Workers have recently been moving out of Haengnyong-ri (the official location of the former Camp 22) in significant numbers, so they are short of hands up there now.”
Meanwhile, Kim also revealed news of the authorities’ plan for the region, saying, “Last year the Marshal (Kim Jong Eun) ordered that Haengnyong-ri be turned into a ‘second Hoiryeong City,’ so 6.28 Shock Troops started building the farm there last fall.”
However, he added, “The construction has not proceeded properly at any stage, and while cadres have been given the decent homes of former camp managers, farm workers have been allocated the small ‘harmonica’ homes that used to house the prisoners, so there is a lot of discontentment at that, too.”
