The North Korean military has declared a “month of fumigation” in an attempt to wipe out bedbugs infesting many barracks.
A source in the North Korean military told Daily NK on July 11 that the General Staff Department of the Korean People’s Army had discovered a bedbug infestation while observing the first week of summer exercises by military units under the Reconnaissance General Bureau headquarters in Hyongjesan District, Pyongyang. Inspectors urgently contacted their superiors on July 4 to notify them of the issue.
General Staff Department inspectors realized the severity of the infestation when they saw numerous soldiers with red insect bites on their faces and necks during morning roll call at a company in a Reconnaissance General Bureau communications unit during the July 1-3 observation period.
“Soldiers in units at the Reconnaissance General Bureau headquarters had also been badly bitten by bedbugs during last year’s monsoon season. The current beds are made of pinewood, which is easy for bedbugs to hide in, so officers have long wanted beds to be made of a different wood that bedbugs can’t burrow into,” the source said.
Upon being briefed, the General Staff Department designated July as a month for focusing on fumigation with the goal of exterminating the bedbugs. On July 7, it filed an incident report for the barrack infestation at Reconnaissance General Bureau units and instructed staff at the bureau and other corps throughout the military to fumigate barracks as part of the summer exercises.
These orders assume that barracks hygiene has a direct impact on soldiers’ performance during the summer exercises and on maintaining their combat ability.
Following these orders, the Reconnaissance General Bureau logistics and medical departments have been distributing pest control supplies to each unit and fumigating one platoon’s barracks each day, beginning with the company where the infestation was first discovered.
While each platoon’s barracks is being fumigated, the soldiers are temporarily housed in the barracks of a different platoon. After the doors and windows are sealed, the beds and other furnishings are sprayed with pesticide and the barracks is filled with fumigant gas, which is allowed to work for 48 hours.
The General Staff Department has ordered that each barracks be fumigated two to five times during the month of July, so long as the extermination work doesn’t interfere with the schedule of the summer exercises.
Soldiers seem delighted with the plans to fumigate their living areas.
“Soldiers say it’s worth the discomfort of spending a few days in another barracks if that means their barracks will be thoroughly fumigated and the bedbugs completely exterminated,” the source said.
The source shared some of the soldiers’ accounts of the bedbug nightmare.
“The summer is already such an exhausting time, and then you get so itchy at night you can’t get any sleep,” one said.
“It’s tough to have bedbugs sucking your blood when we already have so little to eat,” another remarked.
“I was more scared of getting bitten by bedbugs at night than of the exercises we do during the daytime,” a third said.
