Food for hungry stolen by army
International relief agencies sending food to the starving in North Korea are being tricked, as most aid is going to officials and the Army, witnesses say.
A Medecins Sans Frontieres report based on interviews with people on the Chinese side of the border says almost nothing is reaching those dying of disease and starvation.
A teacher in the Chinese border town of Tumen said relatives had told him how international aid monitors were deceived.
'My cousins said a year ago grain was distributed, but they were ordered not to touch it. Foreigners came to check that the grain had been distributed to the population,' the teacher said.
'After the foreigners had left, the Government collected the sacks and never mentioned the aid again.' A Chinese priest said he saw a state-run shop filled with sacks of Red Cross grain during a recent trip to Xinouzhu, North Korea.
'Everyone could see them from the street. I asked my brother how the cereals were distributed,' he said. 'He replied he never heard speak of the distribution of this cereal. My family, their neighbours and friends never heard of it either.' The priest suspected some food aid was being stored in case of war, some was given to the Army and much of the remainder eaten or sold by officials.
Most North Koreans interviewed said the state stopped issuing rations in 1995. Rations were halted five years ago in some places.
A man from Hyesan whose five-year-old son starved to death said his family received one kilogram of rice last June.
'I asked where it came from,' he said. 'They said, 'Take it and don't ask.' I think it was international aid. This is the only time something like this happened. Most of the aid goes to army and government cadres but never to the people.' A South Korean who had tried to set up a dental surgery in the North reported seeing chronic malnutrition and fresh graves.
People were moving around the country in large numbers and some were being held in camps for vagrants.
Many North Koreans spoke of cannibalism.
'Our neighbours ate their own daughter in order not to die of hunger. It is true. I saw it with my own eyes,' said a 23-year-old from Buk Cheng village whose own father had starved to death.
'Many are also dying of typhus and cholera . . . the corpses of those who starved to death are on the roadside.' One 18-year-old orphan said: 'Our cousin killed, salted and ate an orphan whom no one cared about.' The teenager, sent to work on a farm after her parents died, said officials confiscated most of the harvest.
A Chinese Korean from Zhongjiang said that in one village a woman ate her two-year-old son to stop herself dying of starvation.
A refugee who walked from Hunsan reported seeing bodies all along the road to Hyesan. No one in his town had ever received aid, and one-third of villagers had already died.
Many had perished at railway stations as they waited to escape to a better life.
Witnesses also reported that army trucks were driving around at night to collect corpses.
