UN: North Korea increases repression as people reportedly starving in parts of country

North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the UN rights chief said on August 17.

Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the UN Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past its people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but “currently they appear to be suffering both," AP reports.

“According to our information, people are becoming increasingly desperate as informal markets and other coping mechanisms are dismantled, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention has increased,” he said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un closed the borders of his northeast Asian nation to contain COVID-19. But as the pandemic has waned, Türk said the government’s restrictions have grown even more extensive, with guards authorized to shoot any unauthorized person approaching the border and with almost all foreigners, including UN staff, still barred from the country.