North Korea blames Covid-19 outbreak on ‘alien things’ near South Korea border

In an apparent move to shift blame for a wave of infections, state media cited a soldier and a child, 5, who touched unidentified materials before falling ill

North Korea reported 4,570 more people with fever symptoms on Friday, for a total of 4.74 million – though it did not specify them as coronavirus cases

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Workers disinfect the interior of Pyongyang International Airport as part of the country’s anti-coronavirus measures. Photo: KCNA via KNS/AFP

Published: 7:34am, 1 Jul 2022Updated: 10:28am, 1 Jul 2022

North Korea claimed on Friday the country’s first Covid-19 outbreak began with patients touching “alien things” near the border with South Korea, apparently shifting blame to the neighbour for the wave of infections that hit the isolated country.

Announcing results of an investigation, the North ordered people to “vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders,” the official KCNA news agency said.

The agency did not directly mention South Korea, but North Korean defectors and activists have for decades flown balloons from the South across the heavily fortified border, carrying leaflets and humanitarian aid.

South Korea’s unification ministry, handling inter-Korean affairs, said there was “no possibility” of the virus entering the North through leaflets sent across the border.

According to KCNA, an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergartner who contacted the unidentified materials “in a hill around barracks and residential quarters” in the eastern county of Kumgang in early April showed symptoms and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

The KCNA said all other fever cases reported in the country until mid-April were due to other diseases, but it did not elaborate.