Despite critical food shortages, North Korea refuses foreign aid; calls it ‘poisoned candy’: Report
1 min read . Updated: 23 Feb 2023, 11:10 PM IST
Premium- According to the report, North Korea urged lawmakers to focus on becoming self-sufficient and compared external aid -- to cope with food shortages -- as taking 'poisoned candy'.
North Korea has reportedly refused foreign aid despite critical food shortages and has likened it to a 'poisoned candy', reported its official newspaper Rodong Simmun.
According to the report, North Korea urged lawmakers to focus on becoming self-sufficient and compared external aid -- to cope with food shortages -- as taking 'poisoned candy'.
Apart from this, the report even noted that foreign aid provided by 'imperialists' is like a 'trap to plunder and subjugate' North Korea and interfere with its internal matter.
North Korea has been suffering from serious food shortages over recent decades and in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, its food crisis has deteriorated.
The Diplomat in 2022 reported that locals in North Korea even witnessed increasing starvation deaths and people -- used to live day-by-day -- were 'dying one after the other'.
Last week, a report by South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said Pyongyang has reduced daily food rations to its soldiers. Since 2000, this is the first time that there has been a cut in each soldier’s daily food quota.
Also, Kim Jong Un's vow to 'exponentially increase' North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons has added pressure on North Korean economy.
Among other details, international relief groups and UN agencies have exited North Korea. As per World Food Programme 2022 estimate, 10.7 million people were either 10.7 million people were either undernourished or required humanitarian assistance. In the famines of the 1990s, an estimated 3.5 million died of starvation.
