A woman travels on a train stopping at a subway station visited by foreign reporters in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
Visitors look up at mock-ups of dinosaur skeletons inside the Museum of Natural History in Pyongyang on September 28, 2016. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)
Associated Press photographer Wong Maye-E tries to get her North Korean subjects to open up as much as is possible in an authoritarian country with no tolerance for dissent and great distrust of foreigners. She has taken dozens of portraits of North Koreans over the past three years, often after breaking the ice by taking photos with an instant camera and sharing them. Her question for everyone she photographs: What is your motto? Their answers reflect both their varied lives and the government that looms incessantly over all of them. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)
Staff of a boat restaurant on the Taedong River line up at the entrance as they wait to greet customers Sunday, June 18, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. The boat is berthed along the river, which is the fifth longest river on the Korean Peninsula and runs through the country's capital, Pyongyang. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)
People attend the New Year's eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, December 31, 2023. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)
This picture taken on October 10, 2020 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on October 11, 2020 shows the military parade during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea at Kim Il-sung Square of Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA via KNS/AFP Photo)
Gymnasts from the Pyongyang Circus Theater perform during Mother's Day Monday, November 16, 2020, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)
A poster depicts a disinfection worker in North Korea on May 23, 2022. The COVID outbreak in the isolated country, confirmed about two weeks ago, has stoked concerns about a lack of vaccines and medical supplies, while experts said a nationwide lockdown could deepen a food crisis in the country of 25 million. (Photo by KCNA via Reuters)