WFP captures heartbreak of North Korean hunger

[unreal.livejournal.com]

Many North Korean children, like these shown with World Food Programme provisions in 2005, are battling malnutrition

A four-year-old boy looks straight into the camera. His eyes are dull, his tiny legs crossed underneath him. Choi is an orphan, severely malnourished and too weak to stand.

This is just one of the heartbreaking sights captured on film by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) as they traveled around North Korea last month delivering aid to the most needy.

The most deprived are children -- WFP estimates a third of those under the age of five in North Korea are severely malnourished, and says it will only worsen if more aid is not delivered soon.


A pediatric hospital in South Hwanghae province sees a steady flow of young patients. The footage shows health care workers pulling on the mottled, loose skin of a crying child's stomach and another child on an intravenous drip. Many are suffering from diarrhea and skin disease from drinking polluted water.

A group of seven-year-olds are filmed sitting inside, huddled together, too weak to play outside, according to WFP. They look far younger than seven.

"There is a very high rate of children and also adults who are much shorter than you would expect them to be, and why does this happen, because it's a long story of suffering," says Claudia von Roehl, WFP's country director for North Korea.

The already dire situation in North Korea has been exacerbated by a bitter winter and a summer of record rains and floods. The crops of entire rice fields have been rotted by torrential rain. Kim Min-Won is a manager of a co-operative farm and tells WFP, "In Chongdan County, almost 60% of the rice crop has been lost."

Zogun Dong is a resident of Pongchon County. His house was destroyed by the summer rains. "My family and I barely survived when the roof collapsed during a recent storm," he tells WFP.

They now live under a plastic sheet held up by some rescued furniture.

North Korea has been asking for food aid for some time but the main concern among potential donor countries is how to ensure it reaches those who need it, as opposed to the leadership and military.

"The WFP is here in order to do fact-finding missions (and) to reliably tell the international community that their help is first of all needed, and second that it reaches the children that it's meant for," says von Roehl.

The United States sent $900,000 of flood aid earlier this month, including medical aid, blankets and cooking kits but is still deciding whether to send food aid.

A fact-finding mission headed by Ambassador Robert King, special U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights, visited the country in May and wants guarantees that any potential donations would be closely monitored.

The European Union announced in July it is giving $14.5 million in emergency aid to feed more than 650,000 North Koreans. European officials say they had negotiated an agreement with North Korea about how to monitor the aid.

Source: cnn
I had no idea we suddenly had a NK tag

Comments

[obeytheempress.livejournal.com]

A third of children in an entire nation are malnourished... That's a lot of kids. Such a terrible situation :(

[ari-meh.livejournal.com]

this is heartbreaking ㅠㅠ
a third of all children!! that poor little boy looks half his age ):

[acornmama.livejournal.com]

I had no idea this was still going on.

[o13blackcats.livejournal.com]

This is so sad. I was at the DMZ a few weeks ago, and one of the soldiers that was giving the tour was saying how they had had to return the body of a NK soldier home a few months prior, and that he was a fully grown male who was only 5'2. You know that sort of stunted growth is from long term malnutrition.

[fadeintoyou.livejournal.com]

this is so heartbreaking and terrible </3

[chloe1910.livejournal.com]

This is so sad :( I'm glad that better to do nations are helping.

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

i really wished that the US would actually do something about the cause of all this suffering instead of only slightly relieving the symptoms. but ofc the US only cares about anything if the US is threatened, despite calling itself the world police.

[dorkiilove.livejournal.com]

what do you expect them to do? they already tried embargos but that failed to work, in fact it only made the plight worse

it's not like they can waltz in there with guns ablazin demanding that the government give food to their people. if they could have done that, they would have done that already

they can't exactly pressure China either, seeing as how China and America arn't exactly brother and sister either. not only that, but China doesn't bend easily either

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

that's very true, i would say just to take out kim jong il and his son, but we don't have nearly enough information on the government structure of NK to say that there won't be an even more chaotic power struggle afterwards.

[dark-soda.livejournal.com]

Don't start with the us crap, We are in enough trouble as if, Why doesn't another place step up and start fucking take care of shit around here? Most of the people in the us can't fight a job or can't find much of anything to do.. We need to start taking care of our self before we start try to take care of other crap hole place before we turn in to one as well. So No, I don't think we should do anything to help them. Screw other place in the world, What about Us? What about every person in the US that need help?

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

every country has crap to deal with, so do you think every country should sit back and only care about the human beings living within its borders while people are being tortured to death and ripped away from their families?

[dark-soda.livejournal.com]

Yup, Pretty much.. We need to fix our self before we can go off helping other people.

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

wow i bet you're the kind of person who would turn a blind eye to genocide just because it isn't affecting you personally

[dark-soda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would.. you know why? Because it isn't at my front door.. So if i sit here worry about everyone else issue, I wouldn't be able to think.

[hellafun.livejournal.com]

i don't really appreciate USA stepping up everywhere and claiming to be the hero #whiteman'sburden
the USA should focus on their own problems first, because there is a lot.

i think that the right government/ power distribution, is the only way they would be able to improve their current situation.

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

ngl i don't appreciate the US pushing its nose into everyone's business either, but i don't think it's okay for us to sit around and watch people die in forced labor camps and starve to death while being barred from leaving the country to change their situation. as history have shown multiple times, watching and waiting often just allows more people to be killed while we're hoping for some sort of change. and no, i don't think this is a case of white man's burden as they're not trying to "civilize" other cultures, but more of a case of saving human lives.

honestly, i don't who exactly is stepping in, but i just want someone to do so.

[hellafun.livejournal.com]

well you have a point there.

what I meant is that unless the dictatorship in NK is brought down, the government/leader will continue on abusing his power, leaving his countrymen to suffer. these food rations could easily be taken away and used to feed the military instead. Now when other countries step in to try and alleviate the situation, they would have to deal with the government of NK, and once they overstep a boundary (which isn't hard to do), it could start a conflict between countries, which can escalate a war.

idk, i'm not a political science major or history major, but i personally feel that a revolt from the korean people themselves, a constant opposition, would be a good step towards change. I just wish that the south korean government would take the initiative to help those in the north, especially the women and the children, but with the tense situation between the two countries it would be hard to actualize.

[waltz-in-code.livejournal.com]

that's my argument right there. rations aren't getting to the people who need it, and even if it did it still wouldn't be enough. in the long run, we're going to be sending rations for a long time without curing the root cause, north korea's dictatorship. of course a revolt sounds nice, but anyone who exhibits any traits of opposition gets sent to a forced labor camp along with the rest of their family. we could also see in libya and egypt a bit of what happens when the people revolt against a dictator who isn't afraid to destroy his own people.

[hellafun.livejournal.com]

this is so sad. it's heartbreaking that the ones most affected by the situation are the innocent children.