Photo : YONHAP News / UNSC North Korea Sanctions Committee
Large vessels have recently been spotted coming in and out of North Korea’s largest coal-handling Nampo Port, with the cumulative number of vessels that entered the port reaching 30 this year alone.
Citing commercial satellite imagery by Planet Labs between January 1 and June 2 on Wednesday, Voice of America(VOA) said the vessels were more than 100 meters long and carried black objects that are assumed to be coal.
Images taken on Tuesday showed a 132-meter-long vessel anchored at the port with five cargo boxes left open, which were filled with black objects that were also piled around the vessel.
Other images by Airbus taken in February and disclosed on Google Earth showed two large vessels, both loaded with black objects presumed to be coal.
The images come as South Korea, the U.S., eight other countries and the European External Action Service have accused the North of violating United Nations Security Council sanctions that ban the regime from exporting coal and iron ore.