New | North Korea to shut borders to all foreign tourists amid Ebola fears
News comes decades after large-scale border closures during Sars; travel agency official reports some prospective tourists were asked for health checks
North Korea is sealing off all its borders in response to the global Ebola threat, two China-based travel agencies specialising in North Korea tours said on Thursday.
Nick Bonner, from Beijing-based North Korea travel specialists Koryo Tours, said they received “panicked” phone calls at around 3.30pm on Thursday from their partners in the state-run Korean International Travel Company, saying: “The country’s closed”
He said all the socialist state’s borders, especially Dandong across Siniujiu, would be closed to all flights, cars and trains. “All borders will be totally sealed,” he told the South China Morning Post.
Gareth Johnson, founder of Xian-based Young Pioneer Tours (YPT) which specialises in budget tours to North Korea, said they had been informed of the closure of the country’s borders this morning from their North Korean partners in northeastern China, who said: “starting from tomorrow, no tourists will be allowed into the country”.
“We have since then confirmed this with our partners in both Beijing and Pyongyang. We understand that this will be for the time being and we don’t know just how long this will be in force,” he told the South China Morning
“Two days ago, we were told that if we had people visiting North Korea, who’d been to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that they would have to have a health check to prove that they didn’t have Ebola and it’s escalated [from there] over the past two days,” he said.
