Dozens of prisoners reportedly escaped from detention facilities in North Korea recently amid a severe food shortage.

According to Yonhap News on Wednesday, a source familiar with North Korean affairs said dozens of inmates have broken out of regional prisons in Pyongan and Hwanghae Provinces since late last year, inducing anxiety among local residents by reportedly resorting to robbery, theft and even murder to secure food.

Despite the enforcement of a curfew for months as well as patrols and questioning of suspicious people, authorities are struggling to apprehend the escapees.

The source also said that over the last two years, about 700 people died from diseases or starvation in three regional prisons in the North.

The food shortage in the North's detention facilities has reportedly severely worsened on the back of the border closure by authorities in a bid to prevent the inflow of COVID-19, with reports of officials stealing food for inmates in exchange for money.