North Korea is using political prisoners to rebuild a destroyed nuclear testing site and ‘working them to death’, it has been claimed.

Punggye-ri, considered a threat to the west, was supposedly demolished in 2018, just before the first Trump-Kim summit.

There have since been several rumours about Kim Jong-un restoring the site, namely over satellite images which appear to show new activity at Punggye-ri’s tunnel.

Now, it has come out that Kim Jong-un may be using prisoners of war for the project.

South Korean newspaper Daily NK quoted an anonymous source who said: ‘Prisoners are being worked to death in secret tunnels and places that are too dangerous for ordinary people to be sent.

‘They aren’t given any food beyond the minimum or allowed any food from outside. Many of them are dying on the job.’

The source did not mention Punggye-ri by name but this is the only nuclear weapons testing site in such close proximity to the camp he did mention – Hwasong, also known as Camp 16.

This detention facility is just more than 20km away from Punggye-ri. The camp is considered to be one of the toughest in the country, as it was built for prisoners with no chance of release.

One of the reasons the source believes these prisoners are being used is that Hwasong has increased certain staff members.

The source said: ‘While the number of management staff largely remains unchanged, the number of sentries, guards and armed transport staff has been tripled.

‘These are the kind of workers who would be needed to put prisoners on secret work projects outside the camp walls’

The insider believes Kim Jong-un’s government has changed its own laws to make the brutal work possible.

They claim Kim Jong-un passed the responsibility of the camp from the Ministry of State Security to the Ministry of Social Security.

This reportedly made it legally possible to transfer prisoners who would otherwise not be allowed to leave the camp under any circumstances.

‘These measures were taken so that the prisoners can be taken by armed guards to work on the construction of tunnels and special bases that are off-limits to the public,’ the source said.

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The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), which has extensively documented the country’s prison camps, said it would monitor satellite images for any changes at Hwasong.

Executive director, Greg Scarlatoiu, said: ‘As to the use of prisoners inside the nuclear test tunnels, that is possible, especially given the proximity of Camp 16 to the nuclear test facility.

‘The use of prison labour for digging of the tunnels into hard rock is unlikely, as that requires heavy-duty drills, rather than picks and hammers.

‘But the use of the prisoners in clean-up operations after the nuclear tests or in restoring the testing sites, as this report describes, makes sense to me.’

It comes as Kim Jong-un continues to make a show of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, as he wants the world to accept the country as a nuclear power and the US to lift its sanctions.

Just last month he told his people: ‘We will continue to take steps to strengthen and develop our nation’s nuclear capabilities at the fastest pace.’

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