Source: Open Doors, April 29, 2021
North Korean refugee Seojun grows emotional as he remembers the hardship of growing up during North Korea’s “Great Famine” in the 1990s. He shares how he roamed the countryside foraging for vegetables, often going hungry.
A new report by the United Nations indicates North Koreans could be facing the same situations Seojun described. The UN released a statement saying that 40 percent of the country’s population (25.8 million) is starving.
While North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has previously told North Koreans to “tighten their belts” and has spoken about the country’s economic difficulties, at the beginning of this month, speaking at a party conference, Kim used words he has not previously uttered publicly to describe the current situation facing North Koreans, including more than an estimated 400,000 underground Christians.
Speaking to his party officials, the 37-year-old leader called on them to “wage another, more difficult ‘Arduous March’ in order to relieve our people of the difficulty, even a little.” The Arduous March refers to the name the people gave the great famine of the 1990s in which 2-3 million people died—a crisis created when the fall of the Soviet Union left North Korea without vital aid.
Full story includes a video in which Seojun, now a pastor in South Korea, remembers the famine of the 1990s, as well as an update on the COVID-19 situation in North Korea.
See also an analysis of the situation from the BBC and a distressing report from World Vision about seven million people at risk of starvation in six countries in East Africa.