Hundreds of pigs, goats, and rabbits have died at a state breeding farm in North Korea’s Sepho district, and authorities have dispatched a high-level joint investigation team to the site, treating the mass die-off as a politically sensitive incident.
The Sepho Tableland livestock base in Kangwon province is one of North Korea’s flagship agricultural projects, developed under direct orders from Kim Jong Un as a model for large-scale animal husbandry. A Daily NK source in Kangwon province said Monday that the deaths occurred at breeding stations housing pigs, goats, and rabbits, and that a joint team drawn from the Cabinet’s veterinary and quarantine department, the Workers’ Party of Korea’s Organization and Guidance Department — the party’s most powerful internal control body, responsible for monitoring officials and enforcing ideological discipline — and the State Information Bureau was dispatched to the site on May 22 and immediately placed the facility under full lockdown and inspection.
The investigation team determined that the deaths were not caused by a spontaneous outbreak of livestock disease but by negligence and corner-cutting on the part of farm officials. Three areas of failure were identified.
The first was cursory disinfection. Farm managers, citing shortages of state-supplied disinfectant, had been heavily diluting the solution to the point of ineffectiveness, and operating disinfectant sprayers only for show during inspections from superiors.
The second was overcrowding. In an effort to meet meat production quotas, officials had packed animals into the facility beyond its capacity. The resulting rise in temperature and humidity inside the enclosures, combined with the buildup of harmful gases, caused a collapse in the animals’ immune systems and triggered the mass die-off.
Officials arrested on site as cover-up unravels
The third failure, and the one drawing the most severe response, was a deliberate cover-up. When animals first began dying, farm officials concealed the deaths over several days rather than reporting them immediately. Carcasses were buried without authorization, and records were falsified to make it appear that the animals were still alive and healthy. Officials feared punishment if the deaths became known.
“The investigation team dug up the burial sites and counted the carcasses themselves,” the source said. “Officials implicated in falsifying the records were already handcuffed and taken away on the spot.”
The political stakes are unusually high because the animals that died were reported to be premium breeding stock sent down specially from the Pyongyang Central Breeding Station for genetic improvement of the herd. Word has circulated among farm workers that the Cabinet has declared the incident an “anti-party act” that cannot be forgiven under any circumstances.
“This has become a ‘political incident’ that has tarnished the reputation of the Sepho district livestock base, which the Supreme Leader himself has personally overseen,” the source said. “The workers on the ground are shaking, not knowing who will be made an example of or how far the fallout will spread.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
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June 2, 2026 at 02:38PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)