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North Koreans tell BBC they are stuck and waiting to die - BBC News
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Subtitles (455 segments)
North Korea
for over 70 years the country has been
ruled by one family
its tyrannical leader Kim Jong-un has
subjected his people to extreme hardship
the regime survives by repression by
complete blockade on information with
the security services and field tactics
at the start of the pandemic North Korea
sealed its borders
we now know next to nothing about what's
been happening inside the country
sometimes people describe North Korea as
a black hole of information and that
black hole has become significantly
darker over the last few years
months we've been communicating in
secret with three people who've risked
their lives to expose a disaster
unfolding
we've used animations and actors to
illustrate their words
these days watching and sharing foreign
videos is severely punished
one wrong move and you're facing
execution and a desperate struggle for
survival
free supplies are so low
people have started dying
I want to live in a society where we
don't starve where my neighbors are
alive
and where we don't have to spy on each
other
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
I've been working as the BBC's
correspondent in Seoul for just over a
year and for all the time I've been here
North Korea's borders have been shut
I knew these closures would be
would be a big impact on people's lives
so when I arrived I wanted to find a way
to hear from people inside the country
[Music]
North Koreans are forbidden from talking
to anyone outside the country
particularly journalists
there are a couple of
specialist news organizations that have
a network of sources in North Korea we
decided to try and work with one of
these organizations to speak directly to
people in the country so that we can
understand what was happening
[Music]
one of these news organizations is
okay based in Seoul
hello
is its editor-in-chief I'm sorry we're a
bit late
foreign
so what happens to our questions now
um
foreign
wait as long as it takes
[Music]
for months we exchanged hundreds of
messages with the sources in North Korea
each containing just Snippets of
information to protect people's identity
and keep them safe
[Music]
until finally we had enough to put
together
[Music]
I woke up by 5am and make breakfast for
my family then I go and prepare my
business at the market
where I sell medicine
one of the people we've been
communicating with is a market Trader
who lives up near the border with China
and she makes her living by smuggling
medicine over the border from China her
earnings support her family so her
husband and her two children
before covert life was stable
I didn't smuggle every day
when my business made quite a profit
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