N. Korea embarked on big exercise to seal borders during pandemic

Satellite images show new or upgraded barriers along borders with China, Russia

SEOUL For North Koreans, the country's northern frontier long offered rare access to outside information, trade opportunities, and the best option for those seeking to flee.

But as the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the world in 2020, the regime embarked on a massive exercise to seal its borders with China and Russia, cutting off routes plied by smugglers and defectors.

Since then, Pyongyang has built hundreds of kilometres of new or upgraded border fences, walls and guard posts, commercial satellite imagery shows, enabling it to tighten the flow of information and goods into the country, as well as keep foreign elements out and its people in.

The project's scale is evident in the imagery analysed by Reuters and the United States-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, as well as accounts from seven defectors, activists and others familiar with activity along the border.

"The traditional North KoreaChina route is now effectively over, unless there is a major change in the situation," said Mr Kim, a South Korean pastor who has helped North Koreans defect.

He and others who conduct sensitive work on the border spoke on the condition of partial or full anonymity, citing concerns for their safety and a desire to protect their networks.

Only 67 defectors made it to South Korea in 2022, compared with 1,047 in 2019, official data shows. The figure had been declining even pre-pandemic, due in part to tighter restrictions in China, the preferred route for defectors.

North Korea's government and state media have said little about the construction at the border, and its embassy in London did not answer calls from Reuters. But official North Korean organs have noted increased security to keep out the coronavirus and other "alien things".