An organisation linked to a South Korean religious sect blamed by the country’s authorities for a surge in cases of coronavirus has been active in the Balkans in recent years.

The Shincheonji Church of Jesus is facing an investigation after a congregant – a 61-year-old Korean woman known only as Patient 31 – apparently ignored COVID-19 symptoms and attended a church service with some 500 other worshippers in Daegu, a city of some 2.5 million people in the country’s southeast.

Confirmed cases of the virus soared from 30 in mid-February to some 9,000 a month later, with Daegu declared a “disaster zone”.

Shincheonji, which says it some 220,000 followers in South Korea and another 20,000 abroad, has faced an angry backlash from the South Korean authorities and public.