North Korea conducted nationwide air defense and evacuation drills from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, a source in North Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on Wednesday.
The drills came as North Korea conducted seven missile tests over the course of two weeks and engaged in shows of force such as a recent firing exercise involving 12 fighter jets and bombers.
“In North Hwanghae Province’s cities and counties, we carried out three mile and six mile evacuation drills in accordance with an order from the provincial civil defense department,” the source said.
According to the source, people repeatedly performed evacuation drills over the last two weeks, with sirens blaring at random times. On Oct. 6 an Oct. 8, locals carried out evacuation drills in the morning and air defense drills at night.
During the air defense drills, local police and enforcement teams patrolled streets and villages, closely inspecting for light emanating from homes and cracking down on households with their lights on, said the source.
During the drill, the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and Red Youth Guards donned combat uniforms and carried out special patrolls at workplaces and schools, while children under the age of seven, the elderly and women moved to designated air raid shelters where they remained for 30 minutes to an hour.
North Korea had previously conducted air defense and evacuation drills for a day or two in accordance with local and international circumstances. But with the recent drills running for such a long time, many North Koreans wondered whether an actual war was in the making, the source said.
North Korean authorities even punished people who failed to take part in the evacuation drills by sending them to nearby collective farms to carry rice sheaves until late in the evening, according to the source.
In fact, in the city of Sariwon, police busted about 90 people during the course of the air defense and evacuation drills from Sept. 25, punishing them with rice sheaf duty. Police also forced many people on their way to markets in Taesong-dong and Kuchon-dong to work on the collective farms.
The source said people on the streets had nowhere to go when the sirens suddenly blared. “Nevertheless, the police blindly captured anyone they saw, dragging them off to nearby farms to carry rice sheaves,” he said.
Even at universities in Sariwon, evacuation drills were held during morning lectures, and in the afternoon, students prepared for a hypothetical air raid by evacuating to a collective farm within the city limits more than three miles away.
However, the authorities made the evacuated students carry rice sheaves at the farm where they assembled, earning the latter’s displeasure.
In fact, Sariwon University of Technology and Kang Gon University moved their students to designated evacuation sites at collective farms in Magok-ri and Chongbang-ri, respectively. After making sure everyone was there, the authorities made each student carry 100 sheaves of rice before returning home.
“If you say you’re doing evacuation drills, you should perform evacuation drills, not make people carry rice sheaves,” the source said. “The authorities have always mobilized university students to help out on farms in autumn, but this time, there was considerable discontent because they were mobilized under the guise of evacuation drills.”
Meanwhile, in regions along the China-North Korea border such as Yanggang Province, only the evening air defense drills were conducted from 9 PM to midnight; the evacuation drills were omitted. The source said the authorities only carried out the air defense drills in the area because too many drills could lead to greater unhappiness with the government.
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