North Koreans are at growing risk of starvation
Reports of terrible hunger are emerging from the closed-off state
Hunger makes people desperate. On February 10th a starving man in his 70s took a stand outside the communist party office in Hyesan, a city in the northern part of North Korea. As party members arrived for work, he called out, “I’ll die of starvation if things continue like this, please give me food.” Other famished people quickly joined him. When security guards tried to dispel the crowd, a skirmish ensued. In a country where causing a disturbance can get you sent to the gulag, or worse, dissent of this kind appears to be vanishingly rare.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The hungry people’s republic”
From the March 25th 2023 edition
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