North Korea still off-limits to UN humanitarian aid workers

Voice of America

07-03-2025

North Korea continues to shun international humanitarian workers despite ongoing humanitarian needs in the country, U.N. officials say.
Elizabeth Salmon, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said this week that human rights conditions in North Korea continue to deteriorate as a result.
"International staff of the United Nations and humanitarian and development organizations have not been able to return to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Salmon said in her report to the 58th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
"That means that the humanitarian and development assistance that the United Nations could provide is constrained, and an independent assessment of the humanitarian situation is not possible," Salmon continued.
North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The country's pandemic border restrictions in 2020 forced international aid groups, foreign diplomatic corps, and tourists to leave the country.
Ongoing humanitarian needs
The U.N. office that oversees humanitarian work in North Korea said it has been talking with Pyongyang for a possible date for its staff to resume their work. The deadline set for completing its planned goals in North Korea is set to expire at the end of the year.
"There is currently no firm date for the return of international staff to Pyongyang, but discussions are continuing on timing and modalities," said a spokesperson for the office of Joe Colombano, the U.N. resident coordinator for North Korea.
"We reiterate that the United Nations in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea stands ready to resume its regular activities to implement the Strategic Framework for Cooperation between the United Nations and the Government of the DPRK," the spokesperson told VOA on Wednesday.
The U.N. Resident Coordinator Office works with about seven U.N. humanitarian agencies, including the United Nation's children agency UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO), to implement a set of goals agreed to in the Strategic Framework.
Some of the goals are "improving people's well-being" economically and socially, providing "technical assistance and transfer of knowledge, based on the U.N.'s own normative values" and "sharing and transferring international principles and values, standards and know-how."
The window for completing the goals, initially set from 2017 to 2021, was extended to 2024, but in 2023, the U.N. and Korth Korea agreed to extend it to 2025, according to a letter the two signed.
VOA asked North Korea's U.N. Mission in New York when Pyongyang plans to allow international aid workers back but did not receive a reply.
Possible reasons
Jerome Sauvage, former U.N. resident coordinator for North Korea, said Pyongyang may not be ready to admit international aid workers back into the country.
"Humanitarian aid workers in the country require an expensive infrastructure from the North Korean side," such as setting up officers and security, said Sauvage. "This apparatus was dismantled in 2020" with staff reassigned and units dismantled and "is not easy for DPRK to rebuild."
"DPRK has never enjoyed the presence of humanitarian aid workers," Sauvage added, saying, North Korean leader "Kim Jong Un called humanitarian aid a 'poison pill.'"
Bradley Babson, a former World Bank adviser and current advisory council member of the Korea Economic Institute of America, said North Korea "does not want to be seen as weak and needing aid."
"Economic engagement as opposed to humanitarian engagement might be more productive if there was a way to create a space for more normal economic interactions," Babson continued. "The Trump administration might want to use an economic rather than a humanitarian rationale for opening up a different kind of conversation."
Diplomats returning
Following the reopening of North Korean borders in 2023, China, Russia, Mongolia and Cuba resumed their missions in Pyongyang.
In September, North Korea reinstated Swedish diplomats to resume their activities in Pyongyang, with Sweden becoming the first Western country to reopen its mission since 2020.
Last week, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) told VOA Korean Service that its ambassador in Beijing formally assumed his post for North Korea.
Poland sent its diplomats to Pyongyang in November to restore its mission, and Nigeria said in December it is preparing to reopen its embassy in Pyongyang.
Soyoung Ahn contributed to this report.