North Korea UN sanctions are hurting the vulnerable, aid workers say
‘Very little’ aid reaching those who need it most and some China channels have recently been blocked, according to humanitarian workers
The UN sanctions regime against North Korea is hurting the “wrong people” – those who need help the most – according to aid workers with long experience in the isolated country.
They say it has become more difficult for them to deliver badly needed humanitarian aid to the reclusive nation, and that some of their channels through China had recently been blocked because of the sanctions.
KorAid director Katharina Zellweger, who has been involved in aid work in North Korea since 1995 and lived in Pyongyang for five years, said the sanctions were affecting those “who only have very little”.
“The sanctions they have now are really affecting the wrong people,” Zellweger said, adding that the “vulnerable” – children, pregnant women, elderly, ill and people with disabilities – had been hardest hit.
Pyongyang has been the target of a string of UN bans from trade to travel for more than a decade. The UN Security Council passed its toughest resolution yet in September, limiting exports of crude oil and refined petroleum products to North Korea and banning joint ventures with the country in response to Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear and missile provocations.