The South Korean government has approved a private organization's request to send Covid-19 relief products to North Korea.
The group, the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Research Center (IKECRC), said it plans to send 10,000 virus test kits, 20 thermal cameras and a real-time PCR test set to Pyongyang. Kim Han-shin, who leads IKECRC, said the South Korean Unification Ministry approved the shipment on Friday.
North Korea has not publicly confirmed the existence of a single case of Covid-19, but experts are dubious that the virus did not cross into its borders at some point. However, Pyongyang is taking the virus' threat very seriously. The city of Kaesong was placed under lockdown last month after reports that a North Korean defector might have returned to the country from South Korea while possibly infected.
Kim said IKECRC “will try to complete all necessary preparations by this week so they can be sent into North Korea as soon as possible.”
The goods are worth about $1 million, he said. The shipment is not a violation of the punitive United Nations sanctions levied on North Korea for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.
The UN Security Council approved IKECRC's sanctions exemption requests last month, shortly before the South Korean government gave its own assent.
According to Kim, his group was able to raise funds for these products through help from a local government, but he didn’t reveal which local government that was.
Since the coronavirus outbreak, 40 tons of disinfectant and 20,000 hazmat suits have been sent to North Korea by private groups from South Korea, a Unification Ministry official said. The disinfectants and hazmat suits arrived in North Korea in early May and late July, respectively, according to the ministry.
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August 07, 2020 at 03:46PM
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