North Korea is telling its hungry citizens to be prepared to eat less for a few years.
Pyongyang, which closed its Sino-Korea border early last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, said there is only a slim chance of it reopening before 2025. This situation, which includes the restriction of trade, puts a significant pinch on the country of 25 million where people are already starving to death because of skyrocketing food prices, according to Radio Free Asia.
“The food situation right now is already clearly an emergency, and the people are struggling with shortages. When the authorities tell them that they need to conserve and consume less food until 2025 … they can do nothing but feel great despair,” an unnamed resident of the northwestern border city of Sinuiju told the outlet this month.
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North Korea, led by Kim Jong Un, has blamed the pandemic, natural disasters, and U.S. and U.N. sanctions for its inability to provide for its people, according to a Voluntary National Review submitted to the United Nations.
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The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization projected that North Korea will be short 860,000 tons of food this year, which is roughly two months of consumption.
Trade between China and North Korea has begun to pick back up in recent months but only at a fraction of pre-COVID-19 levels, according to Reuters. Exports from China to North Korea rose to $22.5 million in August, which was an increase from prior months but significantly behind the $219 million in August 2019.
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Tags: News, North Korea, Food, China, United Nations, National Security
Original Author: Misty Severi
Original Location: North Korea tells starving citizens to eat less: Report