As winter looms, reports of starvation in North Korea

[Jilly_in_VA]

The warnings are stark and coming from inside and outside of North Korea. Defectors based in South Korea have told us that their families in the North are going hungry. There is a concern as winter approaches that the most vulnerable will starve.

"Problems such as more orphan children on the streets and death by starvation are continuously being reported," said Lee Sang Yong, editor in chief of the Daily NK, which has sources in North Korea.

"The lower classes in North Korea are suffering more and more," as food shortages are worse than expected, Mr Lee said.

Getting information out of North Korea is increasingly difficult. The border has been closed since January last year to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from China. Even getting messages out of the country to family and friends who have defected to South Korea comes at a huge risk.

Anyone caught with an unauthorised mobile phone could be thrown into a labour camp. And yet some still try to send letters or voice mail via text to their loved ones and to publications in Seoul.

Through these sources, some of which have to remain anonymous, we have tried to build a picture of what is going on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59144712

[Beringia]

1. How terrible

[Alhena]

2. How can one family have such a stranglehold on a country since 1945?

North Korea seems completely immune to the forces of progress. China moved on from Maoism, North Korea is still stuck with something much worse.

I just don't understand how this one family of not-very-charismatic (to put it mildly) people has been able to keep an entire nation under its heel for this long.

[Polybius]

4. Kim Il-sung (the founder) was massively charismatic, similar to Castro and Hitler

The son, not so much, and the grandson around the same. They stay in power because of a tightly controlled media. Many have no TV or computer, and even if they did channels and the Web are heavily restricted.

[Hortensis]

3. Hopefully, in spite of its own problems, China will be on this adequately.

Whatever that means. Those poor people.

China maintains permanent resources, though, including military, along its border with NK because of the always-present threat that emergencies in NK could cause hundreds of thousands, or more, of desperate people to pour into China.

It seems very likely NK will reopen the border so China can ship in relief. Rational, certainly.