A ”horrible tragedy” is unfolding in North Korea where up to 7% of the population has reportedly died from a lack of food over the past decade, a United Nations expert on the right to food said on Wednesday.
And millions more will stay hungry unless the international community makes urgent donations to the World Food Programme (WFP), a spokesperson added.
Documents from advocacy groups show ”without any doubt that there is a horrible tragedy going on and an apparent violation of the human right to food in this country”, said Jean Ziegler, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food.
”The tragedy has gone on for almost 10 years and according to secondary sources between 5% and 7% of the whole population are dead now because of hunger, malnutrition and directly related illnesses,” he told a news conference in Geneva.
Independent verification is impossible, Ziegler said because he has repeatedly been denied access to the isolated Stalinist state.
But the expert still pledged to compile a report on the alleged violations of food rights, which include access being denied to those most in need, this year and present it to the UN Human Rights Commission and the General Assembly.
”We will make a report on the basis of what the UN specialised organisations and the civil society … gave us as documents,” he said, noting that his inability to enter North Korea will not stop him from doing his job.
Christine Berthiaume, a spokesperson for the UN’s food agency, warned that the precarious situation in North Korea, which has improved from a famine in 1997, will once again deteriorate without urgent help from donors.
”In the past two years we have really had a huge problem in getting the necessary funds to help 6,5-million North Koreans who are among the most vulnerable and this year is going to be the worst year,” she told reporters.
The WFP has only received $17,3-million of a $154-million appeal launched at the start of the year, she said.
A lack of support from Japan, in particular, which is locked in a dispute over Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago, has hindered the WFP’s ability to offer aid, according to the spokesperson.
In 2001, Japan gave half a million tons of food to North Korea but has provided nothing since, said Berthiaume, who called on countries to differentiate between the political and humanitarian aspect of the problem.
The agency was only able to feed 750 000 people in January and February, but will support 6,5-million over the next two months thanks to two boatloads of cereal and vegetable oil that are due to arrive.
”But if there are no more contributions we will have to cut food to one million people” from May, Berthiaume said, adding that the number will be reduced again in September if aid does not appear. — Sapa-AFP