Travel agency stops trips for Americans
SEOUL: The tour agency that took US student Otto Warmbier to Pyongyang said yesterday it would stop taking Americans to the reclusive state after the 22-yearold died following 18 months in North Korean detention.
“We have been struggling to process the result,” Young Pioneer Tours, the Chinabased travel agency that had taken Warmbier to the North, said in a Facebook post.
“There had not been any previous detainment in North Korea that has ended with such tragic finality,” the company said, adding Warmbier’s death had made it “reconsider” its position on accepting American tourists.
“Now, the assessment of risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high,” it said, adding, “we will no longer be organising tours for US citizens to North Korea.”
The agency based in the Chinese city of Xian was founded in 2008 by a British expat with a motto of taking adventurous travellers to “the places your mother wants you to stay away from”, including the North and Iran. One of a few tour agencies that visit the North, the firm offers trips that include scuba diving and cycling in one of the world’s most impoverished countries.
The company, which advertised the North as “probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit”, came under fire after Warmbier was medically evacuated to the US in a coma after a flurry of secret diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has sent a letter of condolences to Warmbier’s family. “It is deplorable that North Korea does not respect human rights,” Mr Moon said, according to his spokesman Park Soo-hyun.
US rights group Human Rights Watch said Warmbier’s death highlights the North’s position as “one of the worst rights abusing governments in the world”.
His death “reflects a reality that the North Korean people know all too well: the Kim family leadership... will not hesitate to brutalise and kill to maintain their hold on power,” it said in a statement.