Description

According to South Korean sources, between 11 and 14 January 2024, several thousand North Korean migrant workers in the Chinese city of Helong went on strike over unpaid wages. The civil unrest ended after North Korean authorities agreed to distribute several months' worth of pay to the workers. While many of the sources that reported on the event cited a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) and a North Korean defector who claimed to have informants in the region, Chinese authorities have denied that the incidents occurred and several news sources, including Newsweek and Reuters, have stated that they have been unable to independently verify the stories.