An NGO with offices in the U.S. and South Korea was earlier this month granted an exemption from international sanctions, the website of the UN’s 1718 committee showed, allowing the organization to ship medical equipment required for its work at the Pyongyang Third Hospital.

SAM Care International — which conducts work at a hospital in the North Korean capital and in the Sino-DPRK border city of Dandong, among other projects — made the request for an exemption in January, according to a letter uploaded to the website of the UN’s 1718 committee late last week.

The request was approved on February 7, and permits the NGO to bring goods worth $179,673 into North Korea, including an X-ray, a laparoscopy system, and an anesthesia machine.

While some of the products are produced by U.S., German, and South Korean companies — including SG Healthcare, Bionet, and MGB — the letter lists all the goods as having originated in South Korea.

They are intended to contribute to a range of humanitarian efforts, and are “aimed at updating medical machinery and equipment, ensuring access to medicines that treat illnesses and alleviate pain, sending nutritionally fortified foods to treat extreme hunger and malnutrition, and supporting the recovery of surgical and post-operative patients.”

SAM Care International, according to its website, started work on the Pyongyang Third Hospital in 1996, with NGO founder Dr. Sai Park and colleagues becoming “the first foreign medical team to ever perform surgery in North Korea.”

The hospital now functions as the main source of medical care for over a million Pyongyangites, it adds, and “employs over 400 physicians.”

While some of the equipment set to be shipped to the DPRK by the NGO might seem rudimentary, the country has long suffered from a severe lack of even the most basic medical supplies.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un admitted as much during an on-site visit to the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory last year, saying the new facilities would be used to produce “badly needed” equipment and ordering the country push to reach the standards of “developed countries.”

The country appears to be making up for this shortfall in imports from its powerful neighbor, with data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs (GAC) earlier in the month revealing that the DPRK had spent $50 million on Chinese medical supplies in 2019.

But international sanctions prohibit the import of some medical equipment without the express permission of the UN’s 1718 committee — responsible for the provision of sanctioned exemptions to NGOs and international organizations.

This month’s exemption for SAM Care International represents the fifth round of permissions granted to international organizations and NGOs so far this year, and follows permissions granted to the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Eugene Bell Foundation earlier this month.

It also came just a few days before the 1718 committee granted permission to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to ship vital equipment needed in the fight against coronavirus to the DPRK.

Edited by James Fretwell