Daily NK learned on Monday that a former construction officer with the First Brigade recently burnt himself to death in Pyongyang after failing a physical to be sent overseas as a laborer.
A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK that on Jan. 18, an individual self-immolated in the emergency room of People’s Hospital No. 2 in Pyongyang, where laborers to be sent overseas are undergoing physical screenings. He said the person who lit himself on fire in the suicide attempt eventually died while the doctors who were beside him were severely injured.
According to the source, North Korea is recruiting about 10,000 people to send to Russia to work as loggers and other laborers from February.
North Koreans are displaying considerable interest in the opportunity, believing they can make much more money as overseas laborers than they could working in North Korea. Some people are even giving big bribes to cadres to be selected.
The individual who self-immolated, a former staff officer with the First Brigade construction unit – which is largely tasked with building monuments and villas for the ruling Kim family – had applied for a physical to go overseas as a laborer.
In North Korea, veterans of the First Brigade or Supreme Guard Command cannot go overseas as workers because they have experience handling “special duties.” This individual, however, tried to take a physical by hiding his identity.
The problem for him arose not from his hidden identity, but for an unexpected reason, based on the source’s account.
He had lost his little toe to frostbite while building a villa near Mt. Myohyang. However, the hospital made an issue of this and failed him in the physical.
The hospital said it could not send people with disabilities overseas as laborers because they are “incapable of work.”
North Korea has adopted more aggressive policies than in the past to protect the disabled and eradicate discrimination against them. However, there remains throughout society a negative perception that the disabled require support and cannot contribute to society.
The disabled are completely excluded from selection to work overseas because of this perception.
According to the source, the former construction worker protested unsuccessfully that he had “worked in construction for the Supreme Leader (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un), so why am I disqualified?” He even argued that “sending me would be better than sending 1,000 or even 10,000 men.”
Disgruntled by his rejection, he went for a second physical carrying gasoline.
When the hospital staff checked his temperature in the emergency room, he set the gasoline alight. As he burned, he took hold of two nearby doctors, including the head of surgery, trying to take them with him in a murder-suicide.
However, the attempt failed, and the individual died the following day from his injuries. The doctors he tried to kill suffered severe burns to their hands and are unlikely to practice medicine any longer, said the source.
The man hid his identity and volunteered for overseas work to make a living, according to the source.
He was considered a “disabled veteran” and received a medical discharge after losing his toe on duty. Disabled veterans can receive some economic benefits from the state. However, government support is neither fixed nor plentiful, and there are reportedly plenty of disabled veterans who receive nothing at all.
So it is possible that the individual, struggling to make ends meet, hid his identity and volunteered to be an overseas laborer to make money. However, it appears he did the unthinkable out of feelings of despair and betrayal when he was rejected due to his disability.
