A U.S.-based NGO late last week sent its first shipment of medical and rehabilitation equipment to Pyongyang via cargo ship from Dalian, China via the harbor city of Nampho, North Korea, the organization’s co-founder said.

The equipment for the Ignis Community NGO, which works to support treatment of pediatric developmental disabilities and other spinal conditions, is set to arrive in Pyongyang either this week or the next, where it will be used in the construction of a rehabilitation center.

“The coronavirus outbreak has come at a critical time… Finding a way to get medical equipment into the DPRK has not been easy,” Joy Ellen Yoon, co-founder of the NGO, said in a statement on her personal website late last week.

“Stringent COVID-19 regulations are delaying the process and postponing the delivery of humanitarian aid.”

“We had to find a freight vessel willing to ship our medical equipment into the DPRK,” she continued. “In the midst of global sanctions against North Korea and current COVID-19 border restrictions, it was nearly impossible to find a cargo ship that was able to carry our container inside the country.”

There are two possible ports of entry for the shipments, she said, either through a land route from the Chinese city of Dandong to the DPRK’s Sinuiju, or by sea between Dalian and Nampho.

“The first method… containers can be transported by train from China into Pyongyang. From Pyongyang, the DPRK government distributes the goods to the various provinces in North Korea,” Yoon explained.

“However, this method is slow as the quantity of shipments going through the border is backed up,” she noted — potentially explaining why delivery of other organizations’ coronavirus-related aid has been delayed in recent weeks.

Ignis Community’s shipment will, as a result, use the Dalian-Nampho route.

Cargo is expected to remain in Dalian for a few days for inspection, then be shipped directly to Nampho — after which a truck will drive for an hour to deliver the items directly to the rehabilitation center.

North Korean state media has previously reported Nampho port to be one of several to have seen strengthened quarantining and inspection of incoming cargo since early February, as part of broader efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the country.

International sanctions against the North have also made the delivery of the equipment challenges, Yoon said last week.

“Due to global sanctions against the DPRK, strict rules against shipping items into the DPRK requires much communication and can lead to misunderstandings,” she wrote.

The NGO’s cargo, however, was cleared after receiving a sanctions exemption from the UN in late February, she continued, which extended a previous-granted permission issued in September last year.

The equipment — worth $622,317 and purchased from U.S. and South Korea — will be delivered in three 40-foot containers, and include medical treatment beds, rehabilitation modalities, and pediatric therapeutic tools.

It will reportedly be delivered “directly to the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital’s campus where the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC) is located,” Yoon said.

“Throughout the years, the development of the PYSRC has been delayed on multiple occasions,” she wrote. “And now, with the entire world dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, sending humanitarian aid into North Korea is even that much more challenging.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham