North Koreans have been reduced to stealing each other's feces after Kim Jong-Un demanded an impossibly high quota of human waste from his people to use as fertilizer.
The Kim regime forces citizens to collect their feces every January, hoping to increase crop yields despite a chronic national shortage of compost.
This year's quota is “impossibly high,” according to Radio Free Asia, forcing North Koreans to steal or buy shit from each other or face punishment.
Each adult must contribute 500 kg of human waste, and each school child 200 kg.
According to LiveScience, this is easily more than the 145 kg of feces the average person produces in a year.
And now the burden is sparking brawls, with North Koreans clashing as they try to defend their waste from desperate neighbors.
A fight in Unsan County, north of the capital, left two men hospitalized, a local source told RFA.
He said: 'A factory worker tried to steal faeces from an outbuilding next to the other man's house.
North Koreans steal each other's feces while Kim Jong-Un demands an impossibly high quota of human waste from his people to use as fertilizer
Failure to provide human waste can lead to severe penalties
The Kim regime forces citizens to collect their feces every January, hoping to increase crop yields despite a chronic national shortage of compost
“They fought each other with axes and shovels and were seriously injured.”
In another incident, a fight broke out after a schoolboy was caught raiding public toilets.
“The head of the neighborhood watch knocked over the student's cart and yelled at him,” the source said.
'Then the child's mother came out and argued with the guard unit leader, asking if the poo was his.
“Things escalated and a full-blown fight broke out.”
Another source, who was concerned about how she would meet her quota, said women were expected to find as much as a full tonne of poop.
That's because women are classified as 'housewives' – despite most having to work to supplement their husbands' government wages.
She told RFA: 'The communal toilets in the area are locked and inaccessible, so where can I find enough feces to produce compost?
The poop quota is said to be particularly high this year, with the government requiring its citizens to provide 500 kg of human waste
North Koreans have resorted to stealing their neighbors' trash in a desperate bid to avoid punishment
Despite North Korea's urgent need for human waste, Kim dropped at least 260 white balloons filled with “filthy garbage and garbage” on South Korea last year
“We have to steal pig waste lying next to private pig pens, or human feces from private toilets, which regularly leads to fights.”
She added: “The authorities cannot give us food, but force us to supply compost.
“There is no other country in the world where people fight over human feces. The authorities are responsible for this.'
But fights aren't the only public health hazard caused by the urge for poop.
Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), said intestinal worms are widespread.
He said: “Since the end of the Cold War, North Korea has no longer benefited from subsidized imports or gifts from former brotherly communist countries.
'Fertilizer was one of the first victims of this development, with devastating consequences for agriculture in North Korea.
'The regime has tried to make up for this by collecting human waste and using it as fertilizer.
'The public health consequences have been devastating, particularly the prevalence of intestinal worms resulting from this practice.
“The practice of stealing human feces from neighbors to meet allocated quotas is a grotesque symbol of North Korea's profound economic failure.”
The punishment for those who fall short is unclear, but the evidence in recent years paints a horrific picture.
A source in Ryanggang province, in the north of the country, told RFA in 2024 that those who failed could be publicly blamed or given a “severe punishment” at a labor training camp – notorious for putting its prisoners through the most inhumane experiences.
Despite North Korea's urgent need for human waste, Kim dropped at least 260 white balloons filled with “filthy garbage and garbage” on South Korea last year as the regime wanted to teach their neighbors a lesson amid an unprecedented situation. -ending the propaganda war.
The balloons appeared to be carrying various types of waste, including plastic bottles, batteries, toilet paper and probably manure.
Authorities therefore urged South Korean residents to stay indoors.
South Korean media shared images showing garbage bags tied to large white balloons floating over fields and roads, as well as the aftermath of landings where what appeared to be feces had exploded on the ground.
North and South Korea have historically used balloons in their propaganda campaigns since the Korean War in the 1950s.
North Korean defectors are known to send balloons to the North Side containing anti-regime leaflets, as well as reportedly USB memory sticks containing Korean pop music and videos, which are banned under North Korea's communist regime.
