Social order breaks down after years of food shortages
Years of famine and severe food shortages in North Korea have led to a breakdown in public order and rising state violence, according to the harrowing testimonies of North Korean refugees compiled by a leading South Korean aid group.
Drawing on interviews with thousands of refugees who have fled across the border into China, the South Korean group Good Friends described a population driven to robbery, brutality and degradation as it sought to survive.
Many North Koreans rely on aid from the World Food Programme but that has dried up in recent weeks due to delays in donations.
'Since the food distribution stopped, the only food my mother cooks is corn powder mixed with wild greens and salt,' the aid agency quoted one refugee as saying.
'My family of four all lie down during the day, afraid we might get hungry. At night, we wait for the train in the station and steal coal.'
From the 25,000 testimonies it has gathered, Good Friends, estimates that the food shortages which began in the mid-90s have claimed more than 3 million lives, or about 13 per cent of the population. Given the highly secretive nature of the country, that figure is impossible to verify.
The report painted a grim picture of North Korea through the accounts of witnesses without providing any personal details.
Another North Korean woman is quoted as saying: 'We had no way to survive and finally my husband began selling goods in and out of China.
'One day he earned pretty good money and came home smiling. His friend asked him out and he did not come back that day.
'The next evening I found his body on the footpath. I looked for the friend, but all his family had already gone. Because of that money, my husband was murdered by his best friend.'
As public order breaks down, the government is becoming increasingly oppressive in its attempts to maintain control, says the South Korean group.
One female refugee who was caught trying to cross the border described how she was beaten and subjected to a body search during an interrogation.
Since regular state food distribution was suspended in 1994, North Koreans have been left to fend for themselves with the result that the most vulnerable members of society, women and children, have been worst hit.
'My parents left us and went away somewhere. My younger brother and me wandered the streets and begged or stole food. We slept in dark places at night. In the end my brother got ill and he couldn't speak a word and he closed his eyes forever,' according to the testimony of one young North Korean refugee.
Another North Korean described how he saw five children who had starved and frozen to death on the street. 'They were curled like they embraced each other to sleep.'
