hankyoreh

By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent　
　　
Venerable Beomnyun, head of North Korean human rights organization Good Friends, met with journalists Tuesday during a visit to the United States to discuss current conditions in North Korea.
“Due to factors such as natural disasters over the past several years, the failed currency reform, the suspension of external food aid, and poor harvests, even Pyongyang [the city with the best food conditions] saw only two weeks worth of food distribution in November and December of last year, and no distribution at all in January of this year,” said Venerable Beomnyun.
“Since December of last year, the supply of electricity, heating, and drinking water to apartment complexes has been halted, and the deaths of elderly people have become a routine occurrence.”
Beomnyun also said, “At one health center in Hamhung, some 100 out of 180 patients who received house calls in January were suffering from malnutrition.”
He also reported, “In Chongjin, some 150 kkotjebi, vagabond children, died from the cold during the month of January, while in Sinuiju two hundred people were found to have starved or frozen to death in January.”
Kwon Tae-jin, a North Korea expert at the Korea Rural Economic Institute in Seoul, said Friday North Korea’s food shortages will continue to be severe this year due largely to shrinking international handouts, soaring grain prices and an outbreak of a highly infectious animal disease. he expects the North’s grain harvest this year to be about 100,000 tons less than last year.　
On Saturday, the U.N.’s World Food Program plans to brief foreign officials in Pyongyang on the situation of North Korea’s harvests for last year, according to a diplomatic source in Seoul.　
　　
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