US to ban travel to North Korea after Warmbier death

The United States will bar Americans from travelling to North Korea in the coming weeks, travel agencies said today, a month after a US tourist, student Otto Warmbier, died following his imprisonment by Pyongyang.

China-based Young Pioneer Tours, which had taken Warmbier to North Korea, and Koryo Tours said the ban will come into force on July 27 -- the anniversary of the end of the Korean War -- with a 30-day grace period.

"We have just been informed that the US government will no longer be allowing US citizens to travel to the DPRK (North Korea)," Young Pioneer Tours said on its website.

"After the 30-day grace period any US national that travels to North Korea will have their passport invalidated by their government," it said.

The company did not say who had notified it of the ban, which followed its earlier announcement that it would no longer take Americans to North Korea in the wake of Warmbier's death last month.

Koryo Tours general manager Simon Cockerell told

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)