Hyesan City in Ryanggang Province, across the Yalu River.
A resident of Ryanggang Province who had to stay at Home after the sudden blockade was ordered in November last year said, “As long as the market is functioning normally, people can live well even without government help. The government doesn’t want to see us eat well and drink well, so it ordered the blockade to mess up the market.”
Kim, a resident of Hyesan City who was interviewed by DailyNK by phone recently, said, “The market prices have gone up too high after the blockade was imposed.” He believes that the government ordered the blockade in order to ruin the market.
According to him, the blockade order has had a great impact on the market. For example, in Hyesan, the prices of Chinese goods such as cooking oil, sugar and spices have increased at least twice as much after the blockade than before the blockade. People who were unable to do business because of the embargo also spent less.
In addition, people who cultivated their land did not know when the embargo would be reintroduced and did not dare to sell their crops at the market, but hoarded them. After the embargo, the number of items on the market counter decreased significantly and the prices increased.
Last August, the DPRK government blocked the cities of Samjiyon and Hyesan on the pretext of preventing the Chinese Communist virus after North Koreans living in China sneaked in through Samjiyon.
North Korea internally said regarding the blockade of the entire city because of one person returning from China, “There must be other reasons.” At that Time, the government not only banned the movement of people in the cities of Samjiyon and Hyesan, but also completely interrupted the delivery of supplies.
However, in early November, the government blocked the city of Esan again. The reason for this was that the guard instructor and a soldier of the border guard unit stationed in Ryanggang Province were caught while on duty for smuggling and absconded to China in full armor.
During the second blockade, the North Korean government not only suspended all the staff of Hyesan City from work, but also banned all the people from going out for 20 days. In other words, the measures were more severe than the first Time.
Since the city of Hyesan is adjacent to China, smuggling incidents continue to occur even if movement is banned, so the authorities took a more severe blockade than in other places. But the people do not understand why the blockade is necessary.
Kim said, “Because smugglers blockade the whole city is an excuse.” “It’s hard to understand that such measures are taken when they say there are no confirmed cases of the CCP virus.” In other words, many people believe the blockade is not for Epidemic prevention, but for political reasons.
Because of growing discontent, the government supplied each household with 5 kilograms of corn when the blockade was adopted in November, but later replaced it with potatoes because there was not enough corn. At first, there were rumors that 10 kilograms of rice was supplied to each Family during the blockade, but later it was learned that it was not provided free of charge, but sold to the people at a price lower than the market price.
The people were greatly affected by the blockade. Because of the complete ban on approaching the Yalu River, it was impossible to go to the river to wash clothes and fetch water. Kim said, “The first day or two as long as there is electricity at Home up to watch TV or play cards and so spend time.” “But after a period of time began to cut off water and Food, but also do not let people go out, began to become painful.”
In this situation, the atrocities and thefts committed by the soldiers who came to help guard the area during the blockade added to the people’s suffering. While the people were unable to go out, soldiers from other places stole Food, etc. from the warehouses, but the government did not make any claims about it.
In particular, people who did not have a stock of food or firewood starved or froze to death, and some patients who needed emergency care died because they did not receive timely treatment. Kim said, “The number of people selling their houses has increased because of Life.” “A Family in Hyesan-dong sold their house and ate a nice meal together, then committed suicide by eating rat poison afterwards.”
Not only did the economy take a hit after the blockade, but the social atmosphere also became depressed and people’s trust in the government declined. Kim said, “It has become popular recently to remove the word ‘supreme’ from ‘supreme dignity’ and just call it ‘dignity.’ ” “People scoffed and said ‘It looks like the dignity that claims it will never fail can’t stop the virus with nuclear weapons!'”
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