Way before the world began grappling with the Covid19 crisis, North Korean premiere Kim Jong Un had warned its officials with dire consequences if any case of the SARS Cov2 disease was to be found in the country, which is one of the land border neighbours of China, where the disease originated.
It has recently been discovered that the North Korea had issued shoot to kill orders to prevent the outbreak into their territory. With global lockdowns and border shut down taking place all across the world including in the China-North Korea border, the demand for smuggled goods had increased across the border. This was considered one of the reasons of increased flow of people through the borders between the two countries. In a briefing to CSIS at Washington, a commander of US Forces Korea Robert Abrams stated that the North Korean Special operations Forces have been given order to ‘open fire and shoot to kill’ anyone who intends to enter the country. It is interesting in the context that North Korea (DPRK) sitting right in the middle of China, South Korea, Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan has not reported a single case of Covid19 case.
China and North Korea share a border on which two rivers have drainage courses, the Tumen to the North east and the Yalu to the south east. These rivers generally form the means through which people try smuggle items into North Korea from China. This was one of the core areas which the DPRK authorities have tried to keep under a tight vigil following the warning from Kim Jong Un. There is a recently established buffer zone created in the border region between China and North Korean to clamp down on cross border movement to prevent the spread of the disease into DPRK. The ‘shoot to kill’ orders have been implemented in this border with instructions to kill anyone who comes within one kilometre of the border. Whether this order has been given in the border with the South Korea which is marked by the demilitarized zone, it is still unclear.
The North Korea is already under international gaze since CSIS published a satellite image which shows possible preparation for a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile test in the Sinpo Naval Shipyard. The recent discovery of a ‘shoot to kill’ order really intensifies the international attention towards the hermit nation.