SEOUL — North Korea's sanctioned coal and mineral exports have rebounded amid an absence of UN oversight, sustained by forced labour and a shipping network that runs through China and Russia, a Seoul-based human rights group said on Tuesday (June 30).
The Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), in a report with British research group Data Desk, alleges the trade has accelerated since March 2024, when Russia vetoed the renewal of the independent UN panel that monitored Pyongyang's sanctions compliance.
Drawing on satellite imagery, the group counted large ships visible at five major North Korean ports and found their number rose nearly fivefold to 3,756 in 2025 from 783 in 2019. The count covers all cargo ships that have the capacity to carry other goods like iron and weapons, not just coal.
At Nampo, the busiest port and main coal gateway, sightings of vessels climbed to more than 3,000 last year from 554 in 2019, the most in the group's records.
The report also analysed ship-tracking data and found sanctioned vessels docking at foreign ports, more often after the UN oversight collapsed, up to 25 visits last year from four in 2019.
It said the coal trade is run almost entirely by companies tied to the North Korean Ministry of National Defence, which directs the earnings to the military and security agencies, which operate the country's mines and prison camps.
"Everything is interlinked - the forced labour, the goods it produces, and the international security threats," said Ji-yoon Lee, a co-author of the report. "They are all together in one group and it's very difficult to track."
The report says that mines are worked by political prisoners, unpaid soldiers and the descendants of South Korean prisoners of war who never returned home after the 1950 to 1953 conflict, an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 people confined to mine labour by a hereditary caste system.
The findings also drew on 22 interviews with former prisoners, escaped North Koreans and former officials.
North Korea's diplomatic mission in Beijing did not respond to a request for comment.
The UN banned North Korean coal exports in 2017, but South Korea's National Intelligence Service estimates the country still shipped about 1.5 million tons last year, with its origin suspected to be forged as Russian to expand sales to China and other buyers, according to data from People's Party lawmaker Yoo Yong-won.
NKHR called that figure a "bare minimum", noting that a bulk carrier holds about 39,000 tons and 1.5 million tons is fewer than 40 shipments a year.
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