North Korea experiencing big food problems-South Korea
2023.02.15 01:25
North Korea experiencing big food problems-South Korea
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – South Korea said on Wednesday that a North Korean food crisis appears to have worsened, as a newspaper reported that North Korea has stopped providing its soldiers with rations for the first time in more than two decades.
South Korea’s unification ministry said that a report about plans for an “urgent” ruling party meeting on agriculture in North Korea earlier this month effectively acknowledged serious food shortages.
In a statement, the South’s unification ministry, which oversees relations with North Korea, stated, “Its food situation seems to have deteriorated.”
Over the past few decades, North Korea has experienced severe food shortages, including a famine in the 1990s. These shortages are frequently brought on by natural disasters like floods that damage crops.
Due to its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, the isolated nation is subject to severe international sanctions. In recent years, the country’s limited border trade was virtually cut off by self-imposed lockdowns to prevent COVID-19.
According to an unidentified senior South Korean official, the DongA Ilbo newspaper in South Korea reported on Wednesday that North Korea had reduced its soldiers’ daily food rations for the first time since 2000.
The unification ministry stated that while it and other agencies were keeping an eye on the situation, it was unable to confirm the specifics of the media report.
On February 6, the state news agency of North Korea, KCNA, reported that the Workers’ Party of Korea had scheduled a meeting of the party’s Central Committee for the “very important and urgent task to establish the correct strategy for the development of agriculture.” This meeting was to take place in late February.
According to the unification ministry of the South, North Korea rarely convenes such a special meeting.
The food insecurity in North Korea has reached its highest level since the 1990s famines, according to the U.S.-based monitoring group 38 North last month. “Food availability has likely fallen below the bare minimum with regard to human needs.”
Kwon Young-se, the Unification Minister of South Korea, stated that, in light of the worsening humanitarian situation, recent North Korean media reports of the daughter of the leader Kim Jong Un attending state functions may have been intended to foster unity and loyalty to the ruling family.
