North Korean labor training camp detainees are collapsing from dehydration during outdoor work in the ongoing heat wave, receiving neither proper medical treatment nor rest. Instructors at the camps are responding not with care but with verbal abuse and beatings, forcing the collapsed detainees back to work.
A source in North Pyongan province told Daily NK on Monday that two detainees at a labor training camp in Sinuiju collapsed from heat exhaustion in late July after spending the day weeding fields and carrying water in the heat. The instructors on site told them not to fake it and to hurry up and finish the job, then beat both of them.
Labor training camps are short-term detention facilities where North Koreans who commit minor offenses are held and subjected to punitive forced labor. Camps assign detainees to local tasks as well as outside jobs that generate income for the camps themselves. The trouble is that camps keep sending detainees out for outdoor work even during the heat wave and many detainees report dizziness, but they cannot properly rest without an instructor’s permission.
Instructors prioritize quotas over health
Instructors reportedly value meeting work quotas over detainees’ health, driving them mercilessly and resorting to verbal abuse and beatings along the way. The two detainees who collapsed in Sinuiju were told by instructors that they were making excuses because they didn’t want to work, and both were beaten as a result.
“Verbal abuse and beatings by labor training camp instructors are routine,” the source said. “It’s probably meant to instill fear in detainees so they can’t refuse orders, but it makes you wonder how people can treat other people this way.”
A similar incident occurred in Hyesan, Ryanggang province, in late July, when a labor training camp detainee assigned to neighborhood watch unit garbage duty collapsed from dehydration. The instructor on site cursed at him and kicked him, calling it an act, until nearby locals intervened and told the instructor he had gone too far.
“It’s hard for even a healthy person to work outside in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius,” a source in Ryanggang province said. “It’s not strange that detainees who aren’t properly fed would collapse, but instructors focus on the work quota first. In plenty of cases, they even say the detainee isn’t dying and force them back to work.”
Detainees who suffer abuse from instructors have little way to raise the issue with anyone outside the camp. Attempts to report mistreatment typically draw a blunt response: you committed a crime to end up here, so what right do you have to report anything? There is a pervasive attitude that blames detainees for their own mistreatment, with instructors telling them to simply avoid committing crimes again if they don’t want such treatment.
“The reality of labor training camps is that if detainees protest or plead their case, they’re met with even harsher verbal abuse and beatings,” a source in North Pyongan province said.
Treatment and workload also vary sharply within the same labor training camp depending on a detainee’s financial means, with wealthier detainees able to buy their way into easier conditions.
“Those with money can pay off camp officials to get out of outdoor work, even after a labor training sentence, so they have a relatively easy time,” the source in Ryanggang province said. “Having money or not makes a world of difference in how camps treat detainees.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
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August 11, 2026 at 07:31PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)