In January 2020, North Korea sealed its borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, cutting off supplies the already isolated nation desperately needed.
More than three years later, residents say “they are afraid they will either starve to death or be executed,” according to a grim report from the BBC’s Seoul correspondent, Jean Mackenzie.
Assisted by the Daily NK, an organization that operates a network of sources in North Korea, the BBC was able to conduct three clandestine interviews with “three ordinary people” living in the country.
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“The interviews reveal a ‘devastating tragedy is unfolding’ in the country, said Sokeel Park from Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), which supports North Korean escapees,” Mackenzie writes.
In the nation’s capital, Pyongyang, one resident, identified under the pseudonym “Ji Yeon,” said she made a tragic discovery when she checked on a neighboring family of three.
“We knocked on their door to give them water, but nobody answered,” Ji Yeon said.
Upon entering the home, authorities discovered the family was dead.
“Chan Ho” — another alias — said food supplies in his village near the border with China were so low, that five people had already succumbed to starvation.
“At first, I was afraid of dying from Covid,” he said, “but then I began to worry about starving to death.”
Reports Mackenzie:
North Korea has never been able to produce enough food for its 26 million people. When it shut its border in January 2020, authorities stopped importing grain from China, as well as the fertilisers and machinery needed to grow food.
Meanwhile, they have fortified the border with fences, while reportedly ordering guards to shoot anyone trying to cross. This has made it nearly impossible for people to smuggle in food to sell at the unofficial markets, where most North Koreans shop.
“Ji Yeon told us she had heard of people who had killed themselves at home or disappeared into the mountains to die, because they could no longer make a living,” the correspondent writes.
North Korean economist Peter Ward called the situation “very concerning.”
“That normal, middle-class people are seeing starvation in their neighbourhoods, is very concerning,” he said. “We are not talking about full-scale societal collapse and mass starvation yet, but this does not look good.”
Mackenzie notes that even the nation’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has gone so far as to openly refer to a “food crisis” and has tried to boost his country’s agricultural production.
“Despite this, he has prioritised funding his nuclear weapons programme, testing a record 63 ballistic missiles in 2022,” she writes. “One estimate puts the total cost of these tests at more than $500m (£398m) – more than the amount needed to make up for North Korea’s annual grain shortfall.”
Escape from the devastation is unlikely. Since 2020, the government has been passing new, oppressive laws and imposing harsher punishments for those who break them.
Prior to COVID, more than 1,000 people each year would cross the Yalu River and escape into China, according to South Korean data.
One interviewee, called “Myong Suk,” said that is a thing of the past.
“If you even approach the river now you will be given a harsh punishment, so almost nobody is crossing,” she said.
Chan Ho told the BBC that his friend’s son “had recently witnessed several closed-door executions,” Mackenzie reports. “In each one, three to four people had been killed for attempting to escape.”
“Every day it gets harder to live,” Chan Ho said. “One wrong move and you are facing execution,”
“We are stuck here,” he stated, “waiting to die.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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