As North Korea’s (DPRK) borders remain closed due to the COVID pandemic, humanitarian organizations have not been able to return to North Korea. Extremely limited amounts of food and medicine are being transported across the China/North Korea border, but workers are needed on the ground to monitor the situation.

Mr. Frode Mauring, the UN Resident Coordinator for North Korea, recently reiterated that 40% of the population needs humanitarian support. Although these statistics are outdated from a 2018 survey, considering almost three years of border closings, there is no indication of the humanitarian situation improving. In fact, the opposite appears true.

The World Food Program (WFP) has not been able to operate in the DPRK this entire year. Yet, it is evident that at least 10.7 million out of 27.4 million people need humanitarian assistance. The current situation indicates that there is most likely a huge increase in severe malnutrition, particularly among children under the age of five.

Earlier this year, COVID spread throughout the DPRK with approximately 4.7 million people being infected by some form of a fever, which is approximately 18.5% of the population. Currently, COVID vaccination procedures are ongoing for residents in towns along the Chinese border as well as the capital city of Pyongyang.

However, both comprehensive health interventions and food security are only possible when humanitarian workers reside on the ground in North Korea. Unfortunately, all U.S. citizens are still banned from traveling to the DPRK. Humanitarian workers can apply for Special Validation Passports (SVP) from the U.S. State Department, but currently all applications are automatically being denied due to border closings.

The North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2019 authorizes the provision of nonscheduled emergency medical services to the DPRK (Section 510.509) as well as humanitarian support for food, medicine, clothing, shelter, clean water, and health-related services (Section 510.512), but the Geographic Travel Ban (GTR) obstructs non-profit organizations from providing these life-saving humanitarian services. SVP application procedures can be lengthy and tedious, and at times even humanitarian workers themselves are denied permission to travel to the DPRK.

With the urgent need for humanitarian workers to be on the ground in North Korea, it is clear that a more expedited procedure is needed for humanitarian assistance to reach the neediest in North Korea. Potential solutions include amending the travel ban to include caveats for humanitarian workers to be exempt from travel restrictions. Or at the very least, Special Validation Passports need to be pre-issued for humanitarian organizations to be ready to go at a moment’s notice as soon as the borders to the DPRK re-open. As a result, several non-profit organizations with long-standing work history in the DPRK, such as IGNIS Community, are actively preparing to re-engage on the ground in North Korea.