UNICEF was granted international sanctions exemptions to ship COVID-19 aid like patient ventilators and oxygen concentrators to North Korea, according to a July 24 letter posted on the U.N. 1718 Sanctions Committee website on Wednesday.

The aid group is now allowed to send “medical equipment essential for [its] operations in the DPRK” and is particularly focusing on the “impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis and malaria” in North Korea, the letter stated. The letter granting sanctions exemptions is responding to a July 21 request from UNICEF, suggesting that exemptions were approved by the U.N. committee in less