Thousands of North Korean workers are showing no sign of abandoning their jobs in Chinese clothing factories and remote Russian pig farms, despite international sanctions demanding they return home by Sunday.
The nearly 100,000 North Koreans working offshore, mostly in China and Russia, have provided a vital source of cash for Kim Jong Un’s regime. According to US government estimates, Pyongyang has netted $500m annually in taxes from the workers.
But a UN resolution, introduced two years ago after a series of missile tests, demanded the North Koreans return home by December 22 — one of a series of tough US-led measures aimed at reducing the flow of foreign currency into the cash-strapped country.