Factoid:
As much as 10 percent of the population of North Korea may have starved to death since 1997 in the worst famine the world has seen this decade.
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Famine Puts Entire Generation of N. Koreans at Risk
Among the most dire consequences of the severe famine in North Korea is widespread malnutrition among very young children, who could grow up stunted or retarded as a result.
Start Date: 5/25/99
North Korea is in the grip of a "famine in slow motion," according to a representative of the World Food Program. The famine began with severe floods in 1995 and has continued ever since as an almost Biblical run of bad luck has hit the communist nation -- floods, droughts, repeated crop failures. No one is sure how many have died of starvation. The North Korean government recently put the number at 220,000; but South Korean and U.S. sources say that over 2 million have perished.
Massive amounts of outside humanitarian aid have come into the country in recent months, somewhat easing the situation. But there will be no harvest until July, and millions of people remain at risk.
What is most worrying to some observers is the fact that an estimated 63% of North Korean children are undernourished, with some 16% of children 7 years old or younger suffering acute malnutrition. Thousands of toddlers are too weak to take their first steps. Dr. Hoang Thi Van, a Vietnamese World Food Program emergency officer, estimates that 50% of these youngsters may be permanently stunted. Thousands of grade-schoolers are too weak to concentrate on their studies.
A generation of children may grow up physically and mentally retarded. The effects will be felt for decades. "The impact on the people is very serious because you have children suffering from deprivation of food at a very early age," says David Morton, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in North Korea. "This can affect -- this will affect -- their future physical and mental development and this will affect the long-term development of the country."
On a positive note, North Korea has instituted, with foreign assistance, new programs for growing potatoes and breeding rabbits and goats. Officials express optimism that the worst of the famine is over.
Normally secretive and resistant to foreign influence, North Korea's acceptance of help from one-time foes, including the United States, may signal an opening for gradual normalizing of relations with other nations. If so, the horrors of the famine may have some good effect in the end.
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