At the onset of winter, North Koreans are struggling to buy heating fuel or find firewood because of the country’s economic difficulties. On top of that, thieves have been growing bolder, making matters worse for the public.
“The Forestry Act is making it much harder for people to find firewood. This year, people are collecting dried grass and tree branches to stand in for firewood,” a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Monday.
“Some people are getting frostbite from picking dried grass and branches. This kind of thing wouldn’t happen if they could cut down trees for firewood on the surrounding hills as they used to do. But there’s nobody they can complain to,” the source said.
North Koreans typically heat their houses with coal briquettes and firewood. But this year, more families are reportedly unable to buy briquettes because of the poor economy.
Following last year’s revision of the Forestry Act, law enforcement has been cracking down on illegal logging, with the result that North Koreans can’t even chop firewood as an alternate source of fuel from the hills.
So North Koreans have been forced to collect dead leaves and branches, and exposure to the cold for long periods of time sometimes leads to frostbite, the source said.
“Families that make one meal each day with a fire can deal with [the cold] as long as they wear thick clothing. But some families don’t have a fire, so they have to cover themselves in layers of blankets,” the source said.
“I’m worried that something bad will happen when the serious cold gets here,” he continued, adding, “The pain of enduring a hungry belly in a cold room is something you can’t know unless you’ve experienced it yourself. Quite a few people are just relieved to find out they’re still alive when they wake up in the morning.”
The situation has been made even worse by the rampant thievery.
“In the winter, it’s common for thieves to enter houses even when people are inside. Thieves sometimes rip off fencing, outer gates and even front doors from houses, companies and factories, since they can all be used as firewood,” the source said.
“Life is so tough that people are doing whatever it takes to survive, even if that means stealing from each other. No matter how hard people’s lives become, the government won’t do anything until prodded into action by a spate of deaths,” he added.
The combination of economic hardship, the food shortage and the difficulty of acquiring fuel for heating in the winter is driving some people to cross the border into China, the source said.
“In October, three people illegally crossed the border in Sindok District, Taeyongdan County, Yanggang County, and there are two fugitives whose location is unknown,” the source explained.
“There hadn’t been any fugitives because the national border has been tightly sealed since the breakout of COVID-19. But there have been [defections] recently, perhaps because a lot of people think it’s better to run away than just to die where they are,” the source said.
“The number of runaways will increase when the rivers freeze over,” he predicted.
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