North Korea Cracks Down on Border Crossings Again
Open News reports that North Korea’s latest crackdown on border-crossing has made it difficult to get out of the country for any price: Around the mid-1990s when North Korean defectors first emerged, the fee for crossing the river was 300-500 Yuan, about 50,000-80,000 Korean Won. The fee for crossing the river continued to rise as more and more North Koreans were escaping. In early 2009, the fee was 5,000-6,000 Yuan (800,000-1 million won), which is a 10-fold increase compared to...