North Korea’s failing economy is propped up by ‘slave workers’ who sleep in freezing shipping containers, live off PIG SKIN and work 15 hour days
Brave defector speaks out on horror conditions of migrant workers sent to building projects in Russia and China
ARMIES of workers shoring up North Korea’s failing economy by toiling abroad are living in freezing shipping containers and eating PIG SKIN to sustain them through 15 hour days.
The regime has tens of thousands of workers carrying out building products in places like Russia, China, Mongolia and the Middle East.
And they are controlled by North Korean secret service agents who pose as managers in charge of the work gangs to ensure that virtually all their wages are sent to the capital Pyongyang.
A North Korean who spent time working on sites in Russia before defecting to the South revealed the squalid conditions the labourers are forced to endure.
And he revealed anyone trying to escape was sent back to North Korea swathed in bandages to make it look like they’d been injured — before being executed.
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He said: “The workers spend the duration of their time living in a shipping container.
“All 500 workers usually just go back and forth between home and the construction site. About five or six individuals live in one container.
“None of the labourers have the chance to live in an apartment. The Russian companies that hire North Korean labourers install the containers right next to the construction site.
"The workers eat and sleep in them. An electric furnace is used to heat water.
"We used to dream about using a proper bathroom or a bathhouse to wash.”
The whistle-blower told online newspaper Daily NK they got by on the barest of rations, adding: “Sometimes we got frozen pollack on the table, but that wasn’t easy.
"When we had tough work to do, we were sometimes provided with high protein foods like pig skin, which was extremely cheap. We usually ate it fried with some chilli powder.
“If they didn’t feed us, we wouldn’t be able to work. I think that’s why we got a sufficient amount. We were given the very cheapest version of everything, but the amount at least was enough.”
And he revealed that workers from other countries were housed in flats and worked eight hour days.
He said: “Seeing their living conditions made me quite upset. We’re both human. We were doing the same work, but we were getting treated like insects.
“It felt so unfair. They lived better, ate better, and earned more than us. They worked 8 hours per day, but we were forced to work from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. It was a slave-like existence. It made me fume.”
And he revealed the fate of anyone trying to flee.
The defector said: “They send you back home if they catch you trying to escape. But before they send you back, they put your arms and legs in casts, and fix them in place using iron bars.
"Then they cover it all up with bandages. This makes it very difficult to move. To Russian people who might happen to see, it looks like an injured person. They are sent on an aeroplane with the casts in place, and will be executed as soon as they arrive back in North Korea.”
He said he spent two years in Russia and was handed just £2,000 in wages. He spent £400 of the cash defecting to Seoul.
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