North Korea: Millions of children ‘without food and healthcare’ UN warns

RSS Feed

North Korea: Millions of children ‘without food and healthcare’ UN warns

June 12th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Richard Hartley-parkinson

PUBLISHED:

11:12 EST, 12 June 2012

|

UPDATED:

12:27 EST, 12 June 2012

Millions of North Korean children are not getting the food, medicine or healthcare they need to develop physically or mentally, leaving many stunted and malnourished, the United Nations said today.

Nearly a third of children under the age of five show signs of stunting, particularly in rural areas where food is scarce, and chronic diarrhoea due to a lack of clean water, sanitation and electricity has become the leading cause of death among children, the agency said.

Hospitals are spotless but bare, few have running water or power, and drugs and medicine are in short supply, the agency said in a detailed update on the humanitarian situation in North Korea.

Desperate for food: North Koreans work in fields outside Pyongyang - the UN has called for $198m in donations to feed the hungry

Desperate for food: North Koreans work in fields outside Pyongyang – the UN has called for $198m in donations to feed the hungry

‘I’ve seen babies… who should have
been sitting up who were not sitting up, and can hardly hold a baby
bottle,’ Jerome Sauvage, the UN’s Pyongyang-based resident co-ordinator
for North Korea, said in Beijing before presenting the report to donors.

The
report paints a horrific picture of deprivation in the countryside, not
often seen by outsiders, who are usually not allowed to travel beyond
the relatively prosperous Pyongyang, where cherubic children are
hand-picked to attend government celebrations and a middle-class with a
taste for good food have the means to eat out.

Mr
Sauvage’s report provides not only further evidence of North Korea’s
inability to feed its people, but also bolsters critics who say the
government should be spending on food security instead of building up
its military, testing rockets and pursuing a nuclear programme denounced
by the UN, the United States and South Korea.

The United Nations called for $198 million in donations for 2012 – mostly to help feed the hungry.

The
appeal comes at a delicate time for North Korea, which has sought to
project an image of stability and unity during the transition to power
of the new, young leader, Kim Jong Un.

Yet the government has begun to publicly acknowledge a severe shortage of food for the first time in years.

In
late May, in an unusual admission of a food problem by a high-ranking
official, North Korea’s premier, Choe Yong Rim, urged farmers to do
their part in alleviating the food shortage, according to the state-run
Korean Central News Agency.

The problem is worse for people living in rural areas where many children are dying from malnutrition

Fears of another drought have also
been raised by a reported shortfall of rain this spring in some areas,
which is expected to lead to a reduced harvest in autumn. The apparent
effects of the drought were witnessed by The Associated Press in May in
South Phyongan province.

‘I
have been working at the farm for more than 30 years, but I have never
experienced this kind of severe drought,’ An Song Min, a farmer at the
Tokhae Co-operative Farm in the Nampho area, told the AP as he stood in
parched fields where the dirt crumbled through his fingers.

North
Korea does not produce enough food to feed its 24 million people, and
relies on limited purchases of food as well as outside donations to make
up the shortfall. North Korea also suffered a famine in the mid- and
late-1990s, the FAO and World Food Programme said in a special report
late last year.

About 16
million North Koreans – two-thirds of the country – depend on
twice-a-month government rations, the UN report said. And there are no
signs the government will undertake the long-term structural reforms
needed to spur economic growth, it said.

Rations
usually consist of barley, maize or rice, if they are lucky, while many
children are growing up without eating any protein, Mr Sauvage said. He
said malnutrition over a generation can have a severe effect on
physical growth, cognitive capacity and the ability to learn.

Arid land: North Korea has sought to project an image of stability and unity during the transition to power of the new, young leader, Kim Jong Un

The land in the mountainous north is
largely unsuitable for farming, and deforestation and outmoded
agricultural techniques – as well as limited fuel and electricity – mean
farms are vulnerable to the natural disasters North Korea is prone to,
including flooding, drought and harsh, cold winters, the UN report said.

Provinces
in the southern ‘cereal bowl’ produce most of the country’s grains, but
the food does not always reach the rugged far north-eastern provinces,
the report said. A crop assessment in October 2011 indicated that three
million people would need outside food help in 2012.

But
many donor countries remain sceptical whether food aid would reach the
hungry or be diverted to the nation’s powerful elite or million-man
military.

The World Food
Programme issued a global appeal for 218 million US dollars in emergency
food aid in 2011, saying a quarter of North Korea’s population needed
foreign food handouts to keep from going hungry. It received only 85
million US dollars.

South
Korea had been one of North Korea’s biggest benefactors until
conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, ending
unconditional aid by linking it to progress on North Korea’s nuclear
disarmament process.

Seoul
has no immediate plans to resume massive direct food and fertiliser aid
to North Korea, South Korean Unification Ministry spokeswoman Park
Soo-jin said today.

Jerome Sauvage has said North Korea needs to concentrate on its starving citizens, not increasing its military

A North Korean long-range rocket launch in April also scuttled a deal with the US that would have sent 240,000 metric tons of food aid in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests.

Mr Sauvage noted a welcome focus on agriculture, including crop rotation and organic farming, in this year’s joint New Year editorial laying out the government’s policies for 2012.

He noted that North Korea, proud of its free healthcare system, runs spotlessly clean hospitals but with limited facilities.

‘The healthcare system is on paper quite sophisticated. The proportion of doctor per household is very high,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, there’s not a lot in the doctor’s toolkit.’

‘You go and visit a hospital in winter and it will not be heated. Never,’ he said. ‘There will most likely be no water. There will likely be no medicine other than the medicine that agencies are delivering.

‘They have shown us orphanages, kindergartens and hospitals, and I’ve been able myself to see children who I was told were nine years old but had physical signs that they were much older than nine, probably 13 or 14 years old, and were evidently undernourished,’ he said.

Despite the dire conditions, North Korea remains defiant.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency recently accused the West of manipulating food prices as a form of imperialism, and urged North Koreans to become self-sufficient before turning to outside help.

‘Dry bread at home is better than roast meat abroad,’ a KCNA editorial said.