North Koreans have been reduced to stealing each others’ faeces after Kim Jong-Un demanded an impossibly high quota of human waste from his people to use as fertiliser.
The Kim regime forces citizens to horde faeces every January, hoping to boost crop yields despite a chronic national shortage of compost.
This year’s quota is ‘impossibly high’, according to Radio Free Asia – forcing North Koreans to steal or buy poo from each other, or face punishment.
Each adult must contribute 500kg of human waste, and each schoolkid 200kg.
This is way over the 145kg of faeces the average person produces in a year, according to Live Science.
And now the burden is causing brawls, with North Koreans coming to blows trying to defend their waste from desperate neighbours.
One fight in Unsan County, to the north of the capital, left two men hospitalised, a local source told RFA.
He said: ‘A factory worker was trying to steal faeces from an outhouse next to the other guy’s home.
North Koreans have been stealing each other’s faeces as Kim Jong-Un demands an impossibly high quota of human waste from his people to use as fertiliser
Failure to provide human waste could result in severe punishment
The Kim regime forces citizens to horde faeces every January, hoping to boost crop yields despite a chronic national shortage of compost
‘They were fighting each other with axes and shovels and were seriously injured.’
In another incident, a brawl erupted after a schoolboy was caught raiding the public toilets.
‘The head of the neighborhood watch unit flipped the student’s cart over and shouted at him,’ the source said.
‘Then the kid’s mother came out and argued with the watch unit leader, asking if the poop belonged to him.
‘Things escalated and a full-blown fight broke out.’
Another source, worried about how she would fill her quota, said that women were expected to find as much as a full metric tonne of poo.
That’s because women are classified as ‘housewives’ – despite most having to work to supplement their husbands’ government wages.
She told RFA: ‘The communal toilets in the neighborhood are locked and inaccessible, so where can I find enough faeces to produce compost?
This year’s poo quota is said to be particularly high, with the government demanding its citizens to provide 500 kg of human waste
North Koreans have resorted to stealing their neighbour’s waste in a desperate attempt to avoid punishment
Despite the pressing need for human waste in North Korea, Kim last year dropped at least 260 white balloons filled with ‘filthy waste and trash’ onto South Korea last year
‘We have to steal pig waste piled up next to private pig pens or human faeces from private toilets, which leads to frequent fights.’
She added: ‘The authorities can’t provide us food but force us to provide compost.
‘There’s no other country in the world where people fight over human faeces. The authorities are responsible for this.’
But fights aren’t the only public health hazard caused by the push for poo.
Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), said intestinal worms were rife.
He said: ‘Since the end of the Cold War, North Korea has no longer benefited from subsidised imports or gifts from former fraternal communist countries.
‘Fertiliser was one of the first victims of this development, with devastating effects for agriculture in North Korea.
‘The regime has tried to make up for this by collecting human faeces to be used as fertiliser.
‘The public health effects have been devastating, in particular the prevalence of intestinal worms due to this practice.
‘The practice of stealing human faeces from neighbours to reach the assigned quotas is a grotesque symbol of North Korea’s profound economic failure.’
The punishment for those who fall short is unclear, but the evidence of past years paints a horrific picture.
A source in Ryanggang Province, in the north of the country, told RFA in 2024 that those who failed could be publicly reproached or face a ‘severe punishment’ at a labour training camp – infamous for putting its inmates through the most inhumane experiences.
Despite the pressing need for human waste in North Korea, Kim last year dropped at least 260 white balloons filled with ‘filthy waste and trash’ onto South Korea last year, as the regime aimed to teach their neighbours a lesson in the midst of a never-ending propaganda war.
The balloons appeared to have been carrying various items of rubbish, including plastic bottles, batteries, toilet paper and what is believed to be manure.
Authorities urged South Korean residents to stay indoors as a result.
South Korean media shared images which showed rubbish bags tied to large white balloons gloating over fields and roads, as well as the aftermath of landings, where what appeared to be faeces had exploded on the ground.
North and South Korea have historically used balloons in their propaganda campaigns since the Korean War in the 1950’s.
North Korean defectors have been known to send balloons to the North side containing anti-regime leaflets, and have also reportedly sent USB memory sticks of Korean pop music and videos, which are prohibited in North Korea’s communist regime.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
