North Korea closed its borders more than a year ago, interrupting flights and closing its borders with neighboring China and Russia because of the pandemic.
This week, some Russians found a way out.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that several officials at its embassy in North Korea took an unusual route – one that included a bus trip and a trip on a hand-pushed train tram – to reach the border of the country with Russia.
The group included the embassy’s third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, and his 3-year-old daughter, the ministry said on its official Facebook page. He also posted a photograph showing several children sitting on the tram next to their bags, with adults walking behind them on a railroad and snow-covered hills in the distance.
When the group arrived at a Russian border post in Siberia, they were met by colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and taken to an airport in Vladivostok, the ministry post said.
It was not clear from the post whether the group broke any North Korean regulations or found any police or border officers. The ministry did not immediately respond to an email on Friday requesting more details about the trip.
North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 for fear that a Covid-19 outbreak could seriously test its ill-equipped public health system and a domestic economy that was already battling international sanctions, analysts say.
The country also deployed crack troops along its border with China with orders to “shoot to kill” to prevent smugglers from bringing the coronavirus, General Robert B. Abrams, commander of the United States military in South Korea, said in September.
Northern leader Kim Jong-un said last summer that he would not accept international aid after devastating floods in his country for fear that foreign aid could bring the virus, state media reported.
But Kim is apparently willing to import Covid-19 vaccines. According to a report this month from Covax, an international group that negotiated doses of the vaccine, North Korea is expected to receive nearly two million doses of the injected AstraZeneca by the middle of this year.
Northern state media has long insisted that the country has no confirmed cases of Covid-19, but outside experts are skeptical.