MOSCOW – North Korea closed its borders more than a year ago because of the pandemic, halting flights and closing its border with neighboring China and Russia.
This week, some Russian diplomats found a way out.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that eight staff and family members from its embassy in North Korea followed an unusual route – which included a bus trip and a hand-drawn wagon ride – to arrive and cross the border. country’s border with Russia.
The group included the embassy’s third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, and his 3-year-old daughter, Varya, the ministry said on its official Facebook page. He posted a photograph showing three children sitting next to several large boxes and suitcases, with three adults pushing the wagon along the tracks.
The ministry said the wagon needed to be made specifically for the nearly one-kilometer trip, which included a bridge over the Tumannaya River.
When the group arrived in Khasan, a Russian border post in the Far East of the country, they were met by colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and taken to an airport in Vladivostok, the ministry said. In a separate statement, the ministry said the wagon ride was the only possible way for diplomats to cross the border.
Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov – himself a career diplomat – said the trip showed that diplomatic service can be “very hard and difficult” and that it just looks “very beautiful and elegant ”on the outside.
North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 for fear that a Covid-19 outbreak could overwhelm its public health system and hurt an economy that was already struggling with international sanctions.
The country also deployed 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 Armed Forces in South Korea, said in September.
Northern leader Kim Jong-un refused international aid after devastating floods in the country last summer, citing similar fears of the virus’s spread, state media reported.
But Kim is apparently willing to import Covid-19 vaccines. According to a report this month from Covax, which is distributing vaccines internationally, North Korea should receive nearly two million doses of the injected AstraZeneca by the middle of this year, for a population of about 25 million.
Northern state media has long insisted that the country has no confirmed cases of Covid-19, but outside experts are skeptical.