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UNITED NATIONS (AP) – North Koreans living under strict pandemic restrictions are facing a growing food crisis and the most vulnerable children and elderly in the isolated Asian nation are at risk of starvation, a UN investigator said in a released Wednesday Report.
Tomás Ojea Quintana said in the report to the UN General Assembly that North Korea’s agricultural sector appears to be facing several challenges due to the decline in imports of fertilizers and other agricultural goods from neighboring China, the impact of UN and international sanctions on its nuclear weapons Program and an outbreak of African swine fever.
He said the ongoing and severe pandemic measures since January 2020 have resulted in “severe economic hardship and an increased vulnerability of the population to human rights abuses”. Measures include extensive border closure, travel restrictions between cities and regions and restricted imports of non-essential goods, including humanitarian goods.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Argentine lawyer said over 40% of North Koreans were “food insecure,” many of them suffering from malnutrition and stunted growth. That number has risen, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, he said, citing rising prices for rice and corn in various regions in June as well as government emergency measures.
North Korea said Monday that President Kim Jong Un had urged officials to overcome the “dire situation” and “unprecedented difficulties” the country is facing and to make greater efforts to improve the diet and living conditions of its people to enhance. State media said that in his speech at the 76th “
Ojea Quintana painted a bleak picture of the life of the North Korean people who “have already suffered and waited too long for peace, security, development and basic human rights.”
Since the COVID-19 restrictions, he said, they have been subjected to worsening ordeal, including further isolation, “further and tighter government control over people’s lives, further stifling of economic activity and the drain of humanitarian organizations Country”.
As a result, he said, “families can no longer support themselves” and are increasingly borrowing and selling household items in order to survive.
“Many factories and mines were closed due to a lack of electricity, machine parts and raw materials,” said Ojea Quintana. “The numbers of homeless and street children are increasing … (and) social problems such as prostitution, drug use, drug trafficking and robbery are reportedly increasing due to economic deprivation.”
He said the government has reportedly mobilized townspeople, recently discharged, orphaned children, and married women to strengthen agricultural production and farm work. But floods in early August and a shortage of fertilizers, pesticides, fuel for vehicles and agricultural parts are “likely to affect food production,” he said.
In his comprehensive final report as the UN special investigator for human rights in North Korea, Ojea Quintana called on the Security Council to consider lifting sanctions “that have a negative impact on humanitarian aid and human rights, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
He renewed his call for the most powerful body in the United Nations to refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court or to set up a tribunal to investigate possible crimes against humanity.
“These crimes likely continue, embodied in the continued operation of large political prison camps,” said Ojea Quintana.
The existence of these camps, known as Kwanliso, “represents the worst excesses of a system of government that systematically violates the human rights of its people,” he said.
Washington-Pyongyang nuclear talks have stalled for more than two years amid disagreements over North Korea’s calls to end US-led sanctions and US calls for significant North Korean moves towards denuclearization.
North Korea has stepped up its missile testing activities in recent weeks as it makes conditional peace offers to South Korea and resuscitated a pattern of pressure on the South to get what it wants from the United States.
“This is the time to send out clear signals, take concrete action and find creative ways to fuel the stalled diplomatic process to ensure a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” said Ojea Quintana, “and that could be what the announcement could do.” a declaration of peace belong among the parties. “
Since his appointment in 2016, North Korea has refused to visit Ojea Quintana. He said COVID-19 had restricted his visits to neighboring countries, so he held a series of online meetings with victims of human rights abuses, their family members, civil society organizations, UN agencies and UN member states.
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