By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

PYONGYANG, North Korea – The United Nations has called $111 million in aid to fund crucial humanitarian needs in the country. The United Nations estimates that about 70% of the North Korean people are food insecure and one third of children under the age of five years old are stunted. North Korea “is both a silent and under-funded humanitarian situation,” Ghulam Isaczai, the United Nations resident coordinator for North Korea, said in a statement released last Wednesday. “Protracted and serious needs for millions of people are persistent and require sustained funding.” The call for additional funding comes as the North Korean regime cracks down on foreign aid organizations operating inside the secretive state. On Wednesday, the reclusive State’s propaganda news service announced the deportation of aid worker Sandra Suh, a United States citizen, accusing her of engaging in acts of propaganda against the state. It was the second deportation of an aid worker in less than two months after a German aid organization announced one of its workers was expelled in February.

The Need for aid remains high in North Korea, where 70% of the state’s people live in a state of food insecurity while regime insiders live in obscene wealth. (Photo courtesy of Deutsche Welle)

The Korean Central News Agency claimed Suh had “engaged in anti-DPRK propaganda abroad with photos and videos about the DPRK she secretly produced and directed, out of inveterate repugnancy toward the DPRK.” Timothy Park, who accompanied Suh to North Korea, said the allegations were without basis. Suh has been named in the media as the founder of Los Angeles-based Wheat Mission Ministries.

Despite the regimes apparent crackdown on foreign aid workers the North Korean people remain desperate for humanitarian aid as the state continues to fail to meet their basic needs. According to the United Nations latest report on North Korea, Children in rural areas and those in institutions such as nurseries, kindergartens and orphanages have little access to water and sanitation contributing to the spread of waterborne diseases. About 25 percent of North Korea’s 24.62 million people still have no access to essential health services.

According to the economist Marcus Noland, North Korea could close the food gap and end food insecurity in the country with less than two-tenths of one percent of national income or one percent of the regimes military budget. The Kim Jong-un regime is known to be spending six times that of the United Nations latest appeal for aid to North Korea on luxury goods as North Korea’s elite regime insiders continue live in obscene wealth while most people go hungry.

For more information please see:

Deutsche Welle – Expulsions Hinder Foreign NGO Activities in North Korea – 13 April 2015

The Diplomat – North Korea Clamps Down On Foreign Aid Groups – 13 April 2015

Reuters – U.N. Calls For $111 Million for Crucial Aid for North Kore – 9 April 2015

The Wall Street Journal – North Korea Deports U.S. Aid Worker – 8 April 2015

Author: Impunity Watch Archive