Taekwondo Athletes Appear to Be North Korea’s First Delegation to Travel Since Border Closed in 2020

BEIJING (AP) — North Korean taekwondo athletes and officers have been touring by Beijing on Friday morning, apparently the nation’s first delegation to journey overseas because the nation closed its borders in early 2020 initially of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group of round 80 women and men carrying white observe fits with “Taekwondo-Do” printed on the again and the North Korean flag on the entrance have been within the departure corridor of Beijing’s worldwide airport checking in and strolling to customs. They reportedly arrived Wednesday or Thursday.

The group was anticipated to take an Air Astana flight to Kazakhstan to compete on the Worldwide Taekwon-do Federation World Championships, in keeping with Japanese and South Korean media. The competitors is being held in Astana by Aug. 30.

North Korea has extraordinarily restricted air connections at the very best of instances and journey all however ended when Pyongyang closed the nationwide borders to forestall the unfold of COVID-19. How badly North Koreans have been affected by the sickness is unknown, because the nation lacks most elementary well being care and shares restricted data with the surface world.

The obvious resumption of journey got here because the U.N. rights chief, Volker Türk, informed the first open meeting of the U.N. Safety Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that the nation was increasing its repression and other people have been changing into extra determined, with some reported to be ravenous because the financial state of affairs worsens.

Türk stated North Korea’s restrictions are much more in depth, with guards licensed to shoot any unauthorized particular person approaching the border and with nearly all foreigners, together with U.N. employees, nonetheless barred from the nation.

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