More North Korean workers in China are returning home after China canceled visa exemptions for them early this year.

In Dandong, a northeastern Chinese city on the border with North Korea, dozens of female North Koreans working at a sewing factory recently returned home.

Without visas, the North Koreans had been working only with work permits effective for up to three years in China issued by the North Korean authorities but had to return after China refused to issue visas and work permits.

Early this year, several North Korean restaurants in the region whose North Korean employees failed to secure work permits from China had to shut down.

China’s labor authorities had tacitly approved of only North Koreans with passports and transit permits to work at factories and restaurants in China before demanding them to secure official work permits early this year.