WHO working to get COVID-19 medical supplies to North Korea
ABC News
The World Health Organization is working to ship COVID-19 medical supplies into North Korea, a possible sign the North is easing one of the world’s strictest pandemic border closures to receive outside help
SEOUL, South Korea -- The World Health Organization is working to ship COVID-19 medical supplies into North Korea, a possible sign that the North is easing one of the world’s strictest pandemic border closures to receive outside help.
WHO said in a weekly monitoring report that it has started the shipment of essential COVID-19 medical supplies through the Chinese port of Dalian for “strategic stockpiling and further dispatch” to North Korea. WHO officials on Thursday didn’t immediately respond to requests for more details, including what those supplies were and whether they had yet reached North Korea.
Describing its anti-virus campaign was a matter of “national existence,” North Korea had severely restricted cross-border traffic and trade for the past two years despite the strain on its already crippled economy.
U.N. human rights investigators in August asked the North’s government to clarify allegations that it ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who cross its borders in violation of its pandemic closing.