Rainy season downpours have destroyed some of the barriers North Korea erected along its border with China to stop smuggling and defections. The authorities have responded by mobilizing its citizens to restore the barriers.
According to a Daily NK source in Yanggang Province on Tuesday, some of the barriers erected in border areas such as Hyesan were recently destroyed by flooding as summer rains caused the Yalu River to swell.
Yanggang Province’s party committee and people’s committee responded by calling a meeting of government organization heads on July 15. Each organization was assigned a section of the barrier to repair by the end of the month.
During the meeting, officials also ordered organizations to overhaul barriers that were not destroyed in preparation for further contingencies.
In short, the provincial party committee emphasized that in sections with little foot traffic — that is to say, the sections would-be-defectors would most likely use as escape routes — the barriers need to be at least six meters high.
Daily NK’s source also reported that North Korean authorities are trying to dump the costs for the materials needed for the repairs on local government bodies, enterprises and neighborhood watch units.
The source explained that neighborhood watch units were instructed to cough up KPW 10,000 to KPW 20,000, although the levies differ from place to place.
Many North Koreans find it ridiculous that the authorities would dump these costs on the people when more and more families are starving due to shortages of rice and other foodstuffs.
“Many people can’t remember what the words ‘smuggling’ and ‘defections’ even mean due to the intensive border closure and travel restrictions, but the government is still desperate to shut down the border,” said the source. “Locals are passing their days in a hellish environment while it grows harder and harder to get by, but the government just strengthens its means and systems to crack down on and control the people.”
North Korea has mounted a strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic, shutting the border for over two years and erecting barriers along the frontier, ostensibly as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the disease. In 2020, the country also ordered troops to immediately shoot-on-sight anyone approaching the border, a policy the government continues to adhere to.
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