UN report: 100,000 Pyongyang workers abroad to circumvent sanctions
The vast majority are in Russia and the People's Republic of China, despite being banned by the resolution against the North Korean nuclear programme. Part of their salary is retained by the agencies that expatriated them and goes to finance the North Korean government, which would like to increase this contingent to 400,000.
New York (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Around 100,000 North Koreans worked abroad in 2023, earning around 500 million dollars for Pyongyang's coffers, thus allowing them to circumvent sanctions. This is supported by a report from the United Nations Security Council group of experts relating to the period between July 2023 and January 2024.
The workers would have been sent to work in the construction, tourist hospitality, medicine and IT in around 40 countries, but the vast majority would be found in Russia and the People's Republic of China.
“These workers are initially sent on student or tourist visas; some use false nationalities and identity cards,” the report reads. But workers can only keep a portion of their earnings. “The rest is taken by their employment agency and in many cases used to purchase goods for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”
The report also said Pyongyang would have ready contracts to send around 400,000 workers abroad once the border with China opens further after being closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397, aimed at depriving Pyongyang of money and resources that could be channeled into its nuclear and missile programs, all North Korean workers were supposed to return home by the end of 2019 and have not since new work visas would be issued to North Korean citizens.
Many of the workers who were overseas before the deadline would have been stranded in China or Russia once North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 due to the pandemic.
Baek Kwang-soon, the South Korean evangelical missionary whose arrest in Vladivostok on charges of "espionage" was made known a few days ago by the Russian authorities, dedicated himself to assisting these workers. In that region – the Rev. had said on that occasion.
Lee Seon-gu of the Love Rice Sharing Foundation, the organization for which the arrested man works - "there are Russian, Thai and North Korean workers who are poor, needy people, and we provide them with clothes, food and the Gospel".
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