A civic group has urged the government to help North Korea quickly and lift sanctions on the communist country as the total number of North Koreans with high fever passes one million.

“Since 2020, the U.N. Chief Human Rights Representative and Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights have recommended easing or suspending North Korea sanctions amid the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Civil Peace Forum said Tuesday.

However, sanctions against North Korea have remained in place, and while the South Korean government has continued to promote cooperation in quarantine and health matters, it has taken the little move to enhance inter-Korean ties and create confidence, according to the conference.

Covid-19 is growing in North Korea, according to the forum, a network of peace groups in South Korea, in a context where conversation and talks have been disrupted due to the failure to execute agreements between the two Koreas and the United States.

The forum stated, “It is especially painful to see the inter-Korean agreements in health and medical areas in 2018 are not being implemented, what’s needed most to overcome crisis are “sincere attitudes.”

The form requested that the South Korean government and the international community deliver Covid-19 diagnostic equipment and vaccinations to the North on an unrestricted basis in order to aid the North’s pandemic response. It then demanded that the countries involved start talking about lowering or suspending sanctions against Pyongyang.

“North Koreans’ vaccination rate is zero percent, and the fatality rate of unvaccinated people is more than 10 times higher than vaccinated ones. We are additionally concerned that the death toll and infection in the North would rise even further as the communist country has weak health infrastructure and lacks basic medical supplies,” it said. “The government and international community must support medical products, quarantine goods, diagnostic devices, and vaccines without conditions, and devise all measures to this end.”