Update at 3:35 KST: This article has been updated to include comment from the Malaysian Embassy in the DPRK. 

North Korean citizens are barred from leaving Malaysia “with immediate effect,” the country’s deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Tuesday, without commenting further about specifics.

Of the eight North Koreans who have been linked by Malaysian police to last month’s assassination of the man believed to be Kim Jong Nam, two are believed to be in hiding at the embassy: one a diplomat and the other an Air Koryo employee.

The move comes as North Korea’s Foreign Ministry announced earlier