North Korean Construction Workers Run For Their Lives From Russia

While North Koreans make for a large population of migrant workers, the pressure to lose their lives working in the war-ravaged Ukraine has left them scared

In a surprising revelation, North Korean construction workers are discovering that they are in fact been employed to be sent to Ukraine from Russia. Fearing for their lives, these migrant workers are now running for their lives as none would want to the ongoing war-ravaged country.

The ongoing war has led to massive loss of lives and infrastructure, which Russia is on its own volition deciding to rebuild, employing migrant workers from North Korea. The same construction migrants are now running into hiding fearing for their lives.

'After getting the news that the workers would soon be moved to a new construction site in Ukraine, and needed to settle everything by the end of September, many have escaped. It's not only the construction workers, but also management officials escaping,' an unnamed source told the publication.

North Korea has sent manual labourers overseas for years now, usually keeping the majority of workers' salaries for itself, providing the reclusive nation with a supply of foreign currency.

Despite having most of what they earn taken away, workers still get more money doing this than they would working back home in North Korea, though it seems it is only enough to scrape by on.

Most of these workers continue to be poor, with working as much as eight hours of the day and not being able to save anything despite working so hard in cold conditions.

Though UN Security Council sanctions issued on North Korea in 2020 banned countries from allowing such a practice, Russia is still believed to be one of the biggest hosts of North Korean manual workers.

According to a UN report published in 2019, around 30,000 North Korean workers were living in Russia in 2017, with the majority working in the port city of Vladivostok, close to the North Korea-Russia border.