hankyoreh

000 tons of food to North Korea

A wide range of religious and social movement leaders have issued a formal appeal on the Seoul government to “give urgent aid to North Korea in the form of 200,000 tons of food, even if there is no formal request from authorities in Pyongyang.”

“One to two people are starving to death in every neighborhood in North Korea every day,” reads the appeal, released at a press conference held May 2 at 2 p.m. at the Korea Press Center on Seoul’s Taepyeongno boulevard. “The horrific tragedy will fully come to light two to three months hence, but then it will be too late, as by that time hundreds of thousands will already have died.”

“It will take two to three months for international aid to arrive in North Korea, leaving no way to keep hundreds of thousands of people alive during the chun’gunggi, the part of the yearly farming calendar during which food is the scarcest, between May and July. The only way to keep regular North Koreans alive would be for the South Korean government to give its urgent assistance.”

The appeal went on to say that Seoul should give aid even if Pyongyang continues to criticize the South’s North Korea policy.

“Even if the North Korean government does not formally ask for help, and even if it criticizes the South Korean government, we need to be the first to reach out with great generosity and love for our Korean brethren, hearing that criticism as an outcry of hunger,” it said.

The appeal was signed by Kim Myeong-hyeok of the Korea Gospel Association, former National Assembly members Yoon Yeo-jun and Kim Hong-sin, Park Kyong-jo of the Anglican Church of Korea, Park Jong-hwa of the Korea Dialogue Academy, the Ven. Beomnyul, Dongduk Women’s University President Son Bong-ho, the Ven. Sugyeong, Seoul Won Buddhism District head Lee Seon-jong, former Korea National Red Cross President Lee Yun-gu, and Han Jeong-gwan director of the Korea Catholic Bishops’ Association’s National Reconciliation Committee.

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