Reports of people ‘starving’ as N Korea struggles to feed itself | Coronavirus News Plague

Seoul, South Korea – Restrictions on the United Nations Security Council, closure of COVID-19 on its border with China, and the 2020 drought following a hurricane combined with food shortages in North Korea, growing concerns over malnutrition and repatriation The famine of the 1990s.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un acknowledged the issue at a June meeting of the Workers’ Party’s Central Committee.

“People’s food is now coming time, “Kim said according to North Korean media, adding that the agricultural sector has failed to meet its wheat harvest plans due to last year’s hurricane damage.

Kim also reported the effects of COVID-19.

“It is important for the whole party and the country to focus on agriculture,” the North Korean leader said.

Hazel Smith, a North Korean expert from SOAS University of London, who spent the best part of 1998 to 2001 in the country doing agricultural research at UNICEF and the World Food Program, painted a picture of what she knows is happening.

“Children under the age of seven, pregnant and nursing mothers, the weak, the elderly ndi these are people who are starving, right now,” said Smith, whose previous research took him across the country.

North Korea demanded 5.2 million tons of food by 2020, but only produced 4 million tons, leaving more than a million shortages, the Korea Development Institute in Seoul said in a report last month.

Despite exports, North Korea suffers from 780,000 tons of food for 2020-2021, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization said in June described the effects of the drought in early 2020, followed by hurricanes and heavy rains in August and September severely disrupted food supplies.

“If this opportunity is not fully realized through foreign trade and / or food aid, families could have a crisis between August and October 2021,” FAO said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund has warned of the impending dangers of change in the country.

In North Korea “10 million people are estimated to be malnourished, 140,000 children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition … as well as the number of malnutrition and expected deaths in 2021,” UNICEF said in a report. his Humanitarian Situation Report published in February.

As almost all foreign diplomats and aid agencies leave North Korea, anonymous reports indicate that this is worsening.

“There are a lot of beggars, some people are starving to death in the border area,” Human Rights Watch chief investigator Lina Yoon said of a witness from a North Korean missionary working.

Disciplinary penalties

Although experts agree that the COVID-19 epidemic, which prompted the government to close its borders with China, has played a major role in the permanent food shortage, some say the source of the problem lies in 2017.

The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on 2375 and 2397 in September and December of 2017, to reduce North Korea’s exports of crude oil and refined oil.

After being deprived of oil, farmers have failed to plant and harvest crops and produce their produce in the market.

“Agriculture anywhere in the world depends on oil … It’s not rocket science,” SOAS Smith told Al Jazeera, describing what he sees as the root cause of the North Korean crisis.

“The closest approach [for the food shortage] and UN sanctions banning natural gas – as well as oil bans – from North Korea, 2017

North Korea has been facing increasing sanctions for its nuclear program and missile program since 2006.

But after US President Donald Trump became President of the United States in 2017, he launched a massive campaign, leading Security Council sanctions and imposing other US sanctions, forcing the North Korean leadership to abandon its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons.

The move did not delay Pyongyang’s progress in nuclear weapons, which is why Trump changed several talks with Kim, while the North Korean leader wants to be established. The refusal to accept US sanctions led to a negotiation of denuclearization.

“The attacks are not well managed but seem to be working to force North Korean officials to destroy their property,” said Kim Seok-jin of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-sponsored Korean Yonhap News Agency.

Smith disagreed.

He also said that North Koreans are really suffering from sanctions.

“They (sanctions) do not involve the government or the elite … the companies that are imposing sanctions. They are not hungry,” Smith said.

North Korea in the past relied on food, such as rice, from its neighbors, but many items are now being stored at ports due to China’s border closure. [File: Lee Jin-man/AP Photo]

The damage caused by sanctions has been increased due to the closure of the border by China, as Beijing controls about 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade.

After Pyongyang shut itself off trying to prevent COVID-19 from entering, exports from China dropped 81% by 2020, according to the East Asia Forum, a think tank in Seoul.

North Korea’s imports from China are on the rise with oil, pharmaceuticals, household goods and foodstuffs pending, Chad O’Carroll, KoreaRisk CEO and NK News publisher, told Al Jazeera.

“I have heard that there are thousands of buckets being built in Chinese ports that have to go to North Korea that have never happened before. Some of these things have come to ‘sell’ days, “O’Carroll said.

The non-sale is hurting North Korea’s markets, with rice prices in Pyongyang rising by 22% in one week in June, according to the Daily NK, Seoul’s media outlet. Trade improvements have also contributed to the rise in prices of other exports – the shampoo bottle has risen sharply, and has now cost $ 200.

Such wildfires, which reflect the power crisis, have never happened under Kim Jong Un, who took office in 2011.

“It is the first time since he became president that we have witnessed such price fluctuations, and there is no end to the COVID ban that causes this change,” said O’Carroll, whose NK News works with sources within North Korea and across China.

Price changes have also encouraged North Koreans to change their diet – instead of rice and corn, which is cheaper, and the price of other commodities is rising, too, North Koreans are unhappy, Kwon Tae-jin, director for North Korea Northeast Asia Research Center Global Strategy Networking Journal Institute, told Al Jazeera.

“If this goes on, there could be doubts about Kim Jong Un’s leadership and he has felt political pressure, which he seems to be threatening,” Kwon said.

That pressure led Kim to admit that there was a problem.

The acknowledgment is “an effort to raise awareness and provide security,” Choi Su-min, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, told Al Jazeera.

Amid the COVID-19 ban and closure, a handful of groups still working in North Korea have emerged almost. UNICEF and Red Cross finalists left in December 2020.

The UN also warned of the potential North Korean government to ban COVID-19 – medically – especially vaccines. North Korea is now at risk of contracting polio and tuberculosis (TB) as a result of “a large-scale vaccine along China’s border,” UNICEF said in February.

O’Carroll at NK News agreed. “Without the addition of drugs and drugs there is a gradual risk of developing side effects,” he said.

North Korea initially closed its borders to protect COVID-19, but it means important requirements remain at the border [File: Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo]

During the 1990’s, a famine in North Korea killed between half a million and three million people, a disaster caused by drought and floods, the loss of Soviet aid, and economic instability.

Smith of SOAS probably researched the details of the famine and estimated that it was probably about half a million. He also said that today – although North Korea is one of the most remote countries in the world – foreigners do not know about it at all.

“I am not a threat,” Smith said of the incident, before adding, “We are not in the unknown in the 1990’s. We know today what will happen to North Korea even if we fail to count the grass.”

He asked that the real question was what to do with the UNSC sanctions and North Korea’s reluctance to deal with nuclear weapons.

At present there is a consensus among UN member states that do not want to admit that the sanctions are causing problems and a point of confidence in North Korea or “Juche” that makes leader Kim Jong Un reluctant to admit – to his people or enemies – that the North needs foreign aid.

It’s an “unholy alliance,” Smith said.

Recognizing the safety precautionary measures, Smith instead called for a re-examination, as well as sanctions since 2017, which require oil, be suspended immediately, “because we know it is extremely destructive to all, and extremely insecure.”

With additional reports from Jenny Yu.