North Korea Famine – 1994 Introduction : The word famine brings into mind a general lack of access to food and an unusual life threatening hunger. One of the most recent occurrences of a famine is seen in North Korea during the 1990’s. It faced one of the most disastrous famines of human history where millions of people died due to starvation and other hunger related diseases. The socio-political situation of along with the environmental conditions has only compounded the effects. The policy of self-reliance – Juche initiated by Kim Il Sung isolated North Korea from the political community of the world. Some changes in the economic, agricultural, market policy were taken place after the killer famine of 1997. Many organizations have tried …show more content…
A thorough study of the data available would help us understand the extent of population effected. Eberstadt studied the North Korean population and observed that 3 million people were effected during the period between 1990-98. Natsios, ROK National Statistical Office and Choi Eui Chul examined the people from refugees and defectors and found that the deaths during the periods 1995-97 were from about 270,000 to 3 million. Korean Buddhist Sharing Movement (KBSM), Korean Sharing Movement (KSM) and Robinson, Lee, Hill and Burnham collected data from refugees in China and concluded that death rates were around 8 fold during the famine period. (Lee S. , May 2005) Child Mortality under 5 was 31 per thousand in 1994 and 58 in 1996, but the figures submitted to the UN in 2002 were different rates of 28 per thousand in 1994 and 40 in 1996. The numbers submitted by the government of North Korea to the United Nations did not match the figures published by the Ministry of Public Health, North Korea. This was done to secure more aid as it would exaggerate the population effected by the famine and would garner more support for aid. It would be corroborated from the data submitted by the Government that it was