North Korea recently ordered workers deployed to Russia to return home if their ability to work is impaired due to health problems, Daily NK has learned. In short, the country is allowing some workers overseas to return home after suspending repatriations for over three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Workplaces have been ordered to select and individually send home workers judged to have impaired work capacity — or who could suffer impaired work capacity — for health reasons, including needing long-term treatment or operations, being on the verge of death, or having an infectious disease. They have been sending such individuals home since late March,” a reporting partner in Russia told Daily NK on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
The report suggests that North Korean authorities are intensifying their push to earn foreign currency abroad as part of efforts to increase the flow of funds into the country. The country’s foreign currency earnings have been impaired by international sanctions and the closure of the China-North Korea border, which has remained shut since early January 2020.
According to the reporting partner, workplaces in Russia received an order from the North Korean authorities in mid-March calling for the case-by-case return of “sick people judged to be an obstacle to the Workers’ Party’s acquiring of funds through foreign currency-earning activities.”
North Korea had suspended the mass repatriation of its overseas workers as it slammed the nation’s borders shut under the pretext of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Now, however, the country has begun repatriating workers who have a reason to quickly return home as nations around the world relax their quarantine restrictions, the reporting partner said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when North Korean workers in Russia fell sick or died, their workplaces collected money from other workers to treat their sick colleagues or hold funerals. The remains of those who died in Russia were buried in that country.
The latest order suggests, however, that workplaces are conducting full-scale efforts to immediately repatriate workers who need medical treatment or are on death’s door through the purchase of plane or train tickets.
North Korea likely hopes to prevent a fall in foreign currency earnings by quickly repatriating those workers who cannot work at full capacity due to health issues.
“The people now being sent home are workers who haven’t been able to work for the last 20 days, or those who need emergency medical operations or long-term treatment,” said the reporting partner. “At North Korean workplaces in Russia, some of the workers to be repatriated don’t want to go, or are thinking of running off.”
NO MONEY FOR TRAVEL? TOO BAD
Some of the workers facing repatriation do not have enough money for travel expenses and have asked their workplaces for help, but employers are not providing any financial support. This means that many workers, having to pay travel expenses out-of-pocket, will have to return home empty-handed. Some are crying their eyes out, wondering how they can return home with nothing after having borrowed money from family members to bribe officials so they could get the chance to work abroad.
“Some workers complain that they’ve broken their backs working, giving all their money to the fatherland to survive without their salaries. But now the fatherland is playing hardball, refusing to given even 10 dollars to people who have fallen ill while on the job,” the reporting partner said.
“Some workers are even saying that their lives are miserable because the state is telling workplaces here [in Russia] to send workers home to save on medical bills and funerals for sick workers, placing all that money into party coffers instead.”
Given the general attitude toward repatriations among the workers, Russia-based workplaces are fearful that their workers might run off, so they are mobilizing security guidance officers to do everything they can to monitor their staff.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.
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