How many north koreans are there

Anyone caught with an unauthorised mobile phone could be thrown into a labour camp. And yet some still try to send letters or voice mail via text to their loved ones and to publications in Seoul.

Through these sources, some of which have to remain anonymous, we have tried to build a picture of what is going on. North Korea has always struggled with food shortages, but the pandemic has made a bad situation worse. Leader Kim Jong-un has compared the current situation to the country's worst disaster in the 's, known as the "Arduous March", where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine.

The situation is not thought to be that bad - yet. There are some hopeful signs. North Korea appears to be preparing to re-open the border with China, but it's unclear how much trade and aid will be needed to repair the economic damage already wrought on the impoverished country. This year's harvest is crucial.

Last year's crops were partly destroyed by a series of typhoons. The United Nations estimates that the country is short of at least two to three months' supply of food. To ensure this year is as successful as possible, tens of thousands of people have been sent into the fields to help gather rice and corn, including the army. Kim Jong-un has also reportedly ordered that every grain of rice in the country is to be secured and that everyone who eats should go and help with the harvest.

It's creating an atmosphere of fear. Last week, South Korea's National Intelligence Service NIS told a closed-door parliamentary hearing that Mr Kim said he felt he was "walking on thin ice due to the economic situation", according to lawmakers at the briefing.

The NIS also reportedly said the lack of medicine and essential supplies has accelerated the spread of infectious diseases such as typhoid fever. North Korea population is estimated at 25,, people at mid year according to UN data.

North Korea population is equivalent to 0. North Korea ranks number 54 in the list of countries and dependencies by population. The population density in North Korea is per Km 2 people per mi 2. The total land area is , Km2 46, sq. Source: Worldometer www. Medium-fertility variant.

Main Page: Demographics of North Korea. When women are young, she says, they usually serve food in restaurants and as they become older, transition to work as kitchen assistants. Men usually have jobs packing online shopping orders or in the construction industry.

North Korean defectors are given incentives to work and stick at a job and gain skills. South Korean businesses are also given incentives to employ defectors. For those who want to further their education, there are subsidies. Defectors don't have to pay for undergraduate university degrees and those under 35 can also go to graduate school for free. There are also various scholarships available. Defectors also get benefits that they can spend on things such as learning how to use a computer.

Kim Seong-min, a defector who left North Korea in , is appreciative of the educational opportunities that were available. He first worked as a cleaner and janitor for an uncle, but went on to get a graduate degree in creative writing.

That opened doors at the public broadcaster, KBS, where he became a scriptwriter for dramas. In , he established Free North Korea Radio, a station mostly run by defectors that broadcasts into North Korea and carries criticisms of the government and leadership. They either attend local South Korean schools or schools that specifically cater for North Korean children. At the latter schools, pupils "are surrounded by children from a singular background", says Mr Tertitsky.

They can look down on you and it's not easy to catch up with them. It's not the most pleasant place. Hanoi announced that the refugees would be returned to North Korea. The South Korean government was criticized for failing to use diplomatic pressure to permit the defectors to go to the South. South Korean media gave significant coverage to the plight of the refugees, but the Foreign Ministry became engaged in the issue only after European governments and human rights organizations became involved in the case.

The South Korean government has also been cutting back on funding to assist refugees from the North. Aid for defectors was cut by 31 percent.

The cutback was justified by the government because of the decline in the number of defectors. These cutbacks were made shortly before a defector and her young son died , apparently of starvation, in Seoul during the summer of Public outcry over the death of the mother and her son led the government in January to provide additional support for North Korean defectors who were facing difficult living conditions.

It is impossible to tell what impact living conditions for defectors in South Korea might have on decisions to defect to the South. The North has certainly highlighted the issues in South Korea that are unwelcoming for defectors as previously noted. But the increased difficulty of crossing the border to leave the North and more aggressive efforts by Chinese police authorities to stop defector travel through China are the principal reasons for the steep decline in refugees leaving the North over the past year.

The number of North Korean defectors reaching the United States has also declined, though it has never been a large number. Resettlement in the United States takes much longer to process. It takes a matter of months for South Korea to approve resettlement, while getting permission to go to the United States requires a year or more, during which time the refugees must wait in a detention facility in Southeast Asia.

Also, going to the United States requires learning a new language, and the culture and tradition are new and different. The language and culture in South Korea are familiar, although seven decades of separation have created some differences. Additionally, many of the refugees that flee the North are joining family members who have already left, and most are living in South Korea.

The benefits and assistance to resettle are considerably more generous in South Korea than in the United States. For all these reasons, the number choosing to go to the United States has always been small. In the last four years, the number of arrivals in the United States has declined.

It is unlikely that the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration are much of a factor, because the number of North Koreans coming to the U.