Warmbier's Death Highlights Danger to US Visitors in NKorea, About 800 a Year

Nearly 800 Americans visit North Korea every year, but tourist travel there is now under scrutiny following the death of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier, who died Monday after returning to the U.S. from North Korea in a coma following 17 months in captivity for trying to steal a poster.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said the U.S. should curb tourist travel.

"Travel propaganda lures far too many people to North Korea," he said. "This is a regime that regularly kidnaps foreign citizens and keeps 120,000 North Koreans in barbaric gulags. The United States should ban tourist travel to North Korea."

Warmbier traveled to North Korea with the Young Pioneer Tours travel company, which, before his death, said on its website North Korea was "extremely safe."

"The North Koreans lure Americans to travel to North Korea via tour groups, run out of China, who advertise slick ads on the internet proclaiming, ‘No American ever gets detained on our tours,’ and, ‘This is a safe place to go,’" his father, Fred, said at a press conference.

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