North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world – due to the corona epidemic, dictator Kim Jong-un (39) did not even let grain from China.
The consequences seem disastrous: famine seems to have broken out again under communist rule. This was reported by three North Koreans BBCInterviews were conducted with the help of intermediaries.
A Pyongyang woman says she knows a family of three who are starving at home. “We knocked on their doors to give them water, but no one answered,” he told intermediaries. She has also heard of people who took their own lives or hiked to their deaths.
The statement is surprising, because the beautiful appearance in the capital really needs to be preserved. Only the elite and those who believed in the regime were allowed to live there. They get more food than other parts of the country.
Kim Jong-un would rather use an anti-missile system than take care of starving North Koreans
A market trader from the north says that before the pandemic, most of her shelves contained products from China, but now she has nothing to offer. Neighbors reportedly knocked on her door for food, but her own family did not eat so little. She herself had not eaten for two days and was afraid that she would die in her sleep.
Three million North Koreans died in the last famine
About three million North Koreans died in the last major famine in the 1990s. It is not known whether the situation was worse then.
Still, the parallels are striking: 25 years ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union starved North Korea of an important ally that supplied it with not only food but also tractors. Today Dictator Kim does not even release Chinese fertilizer for fear of Corona.
The virus has been around for a long time in the country. The first infection officially occurred in May 2022 North Korea. It’s unclear how badly the virus has hit the already ailing health system.
Still Kim struggles with hunger Corona must be accepted. The dictator recently spoke publicly of a “food crisis” and promised to put more money into agriculture – a sign of how dire the situation must be.
The North Koreans are repairing their border fence with China to prevent their fellow citizens from escaping
At the same time, Kim Jong-un is tightening restrictions on the borders of his Stone Age regime. Smugglers can no longer bring food into the country. A construction worker living on the Chinese border told BBC correspondents that five people in his village had already starved to death.
“At first I was afraid of dying from corona, but now I’m worried about starving,” she says. Escape across the border is almost impossible. If you try anyway, you must reckon with death. The boy next door to the construction worker observed several executions.
“It’s getting harder to live every day,” the man says. “One wrong move and you’ll be hanged. We’re waiting to die.” (no)
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