WINNIPEG – Al Kehler will never forget the famine he witnessed first-hand in Ethiopia in 1983-84.
But this summer, he saw another kind of hunger in North Korea that worries him almost as much.
“The whole country is thin,” said Kehler, who works with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. “I’ve never been in a country where everybody is thin. I can always find people that have more weight than they probably should have.”
Since February, the foodgrains bank has shipped 4,350 tonnes of rice to the country, responding to cries for help from the Korean Christians Federation and the United Nations.
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Kehler said the communist country had stable, predictable food supplies for many years. But now, it lacks agricultural infrastructure and international ties.
“With the demise of the Soviet Union into the ’80s, and very rapid changes in China … North Korean sources of trade and barter and other support simply vanished.”
Then, in 1994, hail wiped out part of its crop. The following year, massive floods destroyed more than 800,000 tonnes of crops. And this year, heavy rains have destroyed almost 375,000 tonnes so far.
Kehler traveled to the country in June and late August to see what conditions people were facing and how the foodgrains bank donations were used.
In the past, the average North Korean ate about 700 grams of cereals per day. The World Health Organization recommends at least 400 grams of cereals in a diet per day. By July, the average North Korean was down to less than 200 grams per day.
Parents give up food
At clinics, doctors are seeing underweight newborns and visibly thinner students. Parents are losing weight from sacrificing food for their children.
“They can’t even maintain themselves, never mind flourish,” Kehler said. “They’re actually declining.”
Statistically speaking, the food shortage is at least twice as bad as the famine Ethiopians experienced, Kehler said.
Mortality rates so far have not been as high because the country seems to distribute its food more equally, meaning the entire population feels the pangs of hunger rather than only the poorest citizens.
“The image I have is a boat with 22 million people in it on a relatively fast river approaching a precipice,” he said. “When they go over, they’re all going to start dying.”
Kehler said the foodgrains bank wants to help prevent such a disaster. After the UN assesses the North Korean harvest later this year, it wants to start shipping more food.
He said the group hopes to get help from the Canadian International Development Agency. However, North Korea is not on the government’s list of eligible recipients.
The foodgrains bank plans to meet with foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy to see if the department can make an exception.
