China sent home more than half of its North Korean workers in 2018, United Nations report says
- Statement, which does not include an absolute figure, made to UN sanctions committee in compliance with 2017 resolution
- Russia issues similar report saying it repatriated about 20,000 North Koreans last year
China sent home more than half of the North Koreans working in the country in 2018, according to an unpublished report sent by Beijing to the United Nations Security Council.
The one-page document, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, was submitted to the council’s North Korea sanctions committee in compliance with a 2017 resolution that demanded the repatriation of all North Korean workers by the end of this year to stop them earning foreign currency for leader Kim Jong-un’s government.
Beijing’s report did not give an exact figure for the number of workers sent home, but a similar document produced by Russia said it repatriated nearly two-thirds of about 30,000 North Koreans working in the country last year.
The United States said it believed Pyongyang was earning more than US$500 million a year from nearly 100,000 of its citizens working abroad, of which about 50,000 were in China and 30,000 in Russia.
The UN Security Council has steadily toughened sanctions on North Korea since 2006 to choke funding for its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. US President Donald Trump and Kim have met twice in the past year in a bid to negotiate denuclearisation.
The December 2017 UN resolution required countries to report to the sanctions committee this month on all North Korean workers sent home in 2018 and, if applicable, “an explanation of why less than half of such” had been repatriated.