A North Korean student who tried to steal gas from a military car to pay for school was beaten to death by soldiers: report

• A student in North Korea tried to steal gas from a military vehicle to pay a school fee.
• He was caught by soldiers and beaten to death, per a report by Radio Free Asia.

A middle-school student was beaten to death by soldiers in North Korea for trying to steal gas from a military vehicle, sources told Radio Free Asia.

The unnamed sources told RFA that the incident occurred on May 4 in Tongnam village in the country's northern territory of Ryanggang. The unnamed boy was hoping to sell the stolen gas and use the money to pay off a mandatory school fee, RFA reported.

The North Korean government often orders students to pay cash, act as cheap labor, or provide materials for state projects, per RFA. In this case, the student was instructed to bring paints and varnish to school or donate 4,000 won — equivalent to $4.40 — to the school.

"Where are they supposed to get paints and varnish?" one source told RFA. "The students had no way to raise money."

The student, along with three others, attempted to siphon gasoline from a military truck. But soldiers who'd stopped nearby for lunch started beating the children, the sources said.

While the other three managed to escape from the scene, the victim was beaten to death by the soldiers, the sources — who say they live in the area where the incident took place — told RFA.

"After they realized one of the students had died, they drove off without doing anything for him," the source told RFA.

The other three students were later rounded up and arrested, per the media outlet. RFA's sources said they were unsure if the soldiers were punished for the killing.

This is not the first time the authoritarian country has killed a civilian over something trivial. In November last year, a man was executed by a firing squad for smuggling the Netflix hit show "Squid Game" into the country and selling it, RFA reported.

A group of six high schoolers who watched the show were also sentenced to five years of hard labor, and their teachers and school administrators were fired, per RFA.

Another outlandish law in North Korea is the ban on people having the same name as Kim Jong Un's daughter, "Ju Ae." People with that name are required to change their birth certificates, per a February report from RFA.

Insider could not independently verify the identity of the deceased student.